PODCAST DECEMBER 27, 2023
Episode #7 Podcast
with Lise Pace
Lise Pace’s Inspiring Path: Navigating Career Opportunities as BVI and Mindset Shifts to Rise from Volunteer to Executive Vice President in 15 Years!
Episode #7 Podcast
Show Notes
In this week’s episode of Heard & Empowered, Dr. Hoby Wedler talks with Lise Pace, executive vice president of Bosma Enterprises. When she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in her early twenties, Lise was a young mother starting a promising career in finance. Following the diagnosis, her vision remained stable allowing her to keep her job for a few years, but by the time she reached her thirties, she experienced rapid vision loss.
Lise’s manager suggested that she stay home to assist her family, but for someone wired to work, eight years without a professional environment became isolating. It was that internal drive to work and succeed that brought Lise to Bosma as a volunteer, opening the door to a world of new opportunities. Lise was recruited to join the AmeriCorps VISTA program, where she worked on sustainable programs to combat poverty, and she occupied 13 positions at Bosma before becoming Executive VP. The most inspiring part of Lise’s story is that she accomplished all of this within just 15 years!
If you’re looking to explore a career path with multiple opportunities but don’t know where to start, engaging in community service as a volunteer for BVI services is something worth considering, and an option that can lead to empowering career goals. Join the conversation this week to hear more about the significant impact that volunteering at Bosma had on Lise’s life. Discover how it raised her spirits and gave her confidence by creating a sense of being needed and feeling helpful, especially after the long period of disconnection, low expectations, and depression that followed when she lost her vision.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why volunteering is a valuable first step towards employment.
- The impact a supportive environment can have on your experience at work.
- What the AmeriCorps VISTA program is, what Lise worked on, and its impact on the BVI community.
- Lise’s inspiring journey transitioning from depression to a thriving career as an Executive VP.
- How Lise’s professional success acted gave her family peace of mind and allowed her son to achieve one of his dreams.
- The significance of opportunities in job searching.
- How Lise’s blindness went from being an overwhelming obstacle to just a nuisance and an inconvenience.
- Lise’s advice for those who are blind or visually impaired and yearning to enrich their lives.
Featured on the Show:
About Lise Pace
Executive Vice President, Bosma Enterprises
Lise Pace has more than 20 years of professional experience, working in both the banking and non-profit sectors. She spent nearly 15 years in banking and finance, working in many areas of bank management. She has worked in marketing for nearly a decade at Bosma Enterprises, growing awareness of the organization and its mission.
She left the workforce in 2000 due to the effects of retinitis pigmentosa, which caused significant vision loss. In 2008, she started at Bosma Enterprises as a volunteer. After six months, she was recruited to be an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) at Bosma Enterprises. As a VISTA, she was recognized for her impassioned service as Indiana’s VISTA of the Year. During this time, she was a staunch advocate for the National Service Inclusion Project, encouraging organizations to include people with disabilities in national service and using volunteerism to get people back into the workforce. She served on the Planning Committee for the 2009 Governor’s Volunteer Conference and the Inclusion in National Service Steering Committee. After a year of service as a VISTA, she was hired full-time as the volunteer programs manager at Bosma Enterprises.
As the volunteer programs manager, she grew volunteerism at Bosma. She also served as the supervisor of Bosma Enterprises’ VISTA program. In 2009, she served on the Grant Review Committee for the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In 2012, she was tapped to lead Bosma’s marketing program. Just a year later, she was promoted to senior marketing manager. In 2016, Lise became the Sr. Director of Marketing & Advocacy and was named to Bosma Enterprises’ Executive Leadership Team. In 2023, she was promoted to Executive Vice President, where she leads the programs, sales and business development, customer service, marketing and public policy teams.
Lise has also developed a well-respected public policy program championing issues important to the employment and training of people with disabilities. Her public policy program also included a get-out-the-vote initiative that resulted in dozens of employees and clients voting for the first time. She is passionate about ensuring people who have disabilities have a voice.
Lise is married and resides in Indianapolis, IN. She holds an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University. She serves as a member of the IndyGo Board of Directors and is a National Industries for the Blind Leadership and Employment Advocate. She also lends support to the Leticia Campodonico Human Relations Award, an honor named after her mother, given out annually by the Indiana Association of College Admission Counselors.
Episode Transcript
Lise: I went to Bosma on a tour, and it was sort of the reverse of the situation that I had when I was diagnosed with blindness: it was dark when I came in and it was light when I came back out. And I was introduced to all these people who were blind and living their lives.
Hoby: And loving life. Wow!
Lise: And they had families and they had careers. And so, it was life-changing.
Welcome to the Heard and Empowered podcast presented by National Industries for the Blind. You’re not just a listener here, you’re a catalyst for change. Whether you’re blind, visually impaired or an ally, this is your ultimate resource for building a fulfilling career and an enriching life. We’re on a mission to shift perceptions, open hearts and minds, and unlock unparalleled job opportunities for the BVI community. Ready to be heard and empowered? Let’s welcome our host, Dr. Hoby Wedler.
Hoby: This is a special episode recorded at the 2023 National Industries for the Blind Conference in Washington DC. Please excuse any audio quirks as we capture these conversations, but we guarantee the wisdom is pure gold.
Hello, and welcome back to that Heard and Empowered podcast and today I’m so excited to be having a conversation with the wonderful Lise Pace. Lise, welcome.
Lise: Thank you so much, Hoby, it’s great to be here.
Hoby: This is fantastic. So, if you don’t mind just telling us where you work and what your title is.
Lise: I work at Bosma Enterprises. We are located in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I am the executive vice president.
Hoby: Fantastic. We’re really excited to chat with you. And this podcast is all about kind of three main groups, one group of people are people who are blind or visually impaired, interested in pursuing work for any of the NIB agencies and maybe getting off of state and federal benefits or reducing those benefits and going out to work. Also for families of folks who are relatives of someone who is blind or visually impaired and just want to understand more of the work market and what’s out there, and even what training resources are available in order to embark on a career for one of our agencies.
And the third group is anyone interested in how someone who is blind or visually impaired works and makes a living and lives a good, healthy, prosperous life. So that’s what we’re all about here. Let’s chat a little bit about it. We’ll use your story as a lens to have that conversation and show people what’s possible.
Lise: Well I appreciate you having me.
Hoby: Thank you for being here. So if you don’t mind just sharing a little bit about your past. And I always love to know how we get into blind and visually impaired services. How does that happen? Where did our life take us previously that landed us here? I’d love to just hear about your background.
Lise: I had a normal childhood. I was born in Michigan. We moved when I was a child to Fort Wayne, Indiana and my parents were looking for a little bit more of a rural lifestyle. And I had a normal upbringing and normal vision, went to regular eye appointments. In retrospect now, I was always kind of considered klutzy. When I would drive, I would be at a four way stop and just run into the side of a car.
But, again, going through those routine eye appointments just kind of thought that I was klutzy or didn’t pay attention. And then moved to Indianapolis in my early 20s, got married, had a son. Sort of in parallel I was really embarking on a good career in banking and finance. And as I was driving to work I would start to have troubles navigating when I drove. Things would sort of pop out of nowhere and almost startle me. And I thought I probably need to go get my vision checked again, get some glasses, maybe something happened when I had my son. You know, during pregnancy maybe that impacted my vision.
Hoby: Sure.
Lise: And so, I went to a local vision center. Went in and the doctor examined my eyes, he left the room, came back in and he said, “Do you know that you have retinitis pigmentosa?” And I said, “Well, I had no idea, but I’m obviously here because I need some glasses.” And he said, “Well, I don’t think you understand.” And I said, “Understand what?” And he said, “You have degenerative retinal disease. Over your lifetime you will go blind, I suggest that you get ready for it.”
And so it was fairly jarring to go to what you think is sort of a normal eye appointment and you come out with this news that not only is it something that cannot be corrected, but it’s something that may take your vision entirely. I’m in my early 20s. I’m a new mom. I’m a new wife.
Hoby: And you’re embarking on a really advanced career in banking and finance.
Lise: I am. And so while everybody’s looking forward to what’s in the future, I have this diagnosis that the world’s going to go dark.
Hoby: Do you remember kind of how you felt that moment, that day just sort of processing and dealing with it?
Lise: Absolutely. I remember it was a sunny day when I went in, and when I came out it was dark. Visual impairment, blindness is a low incidence disability, so I didn’t have any compass for what this was going to look like.
Hoby: You didn’t have any friends that were visually impaired, probably.
Lise: I didn’t. And my first sort of thought was, everything’s great now and I don’t want to be a burden to my family. I don’t want to be a burden to this new child that I have. And so, yeah, it was pretty traumatic.
Hoby: Traumatic. And how did you sort of come out of that rut? Because that’s something that I think is a really interesting cycle is how we – And I was born blind, so honestly it’s an experience that I just know from talking to others, but it’s not one that I’ve lived, where you lose sight as an adult or as an older child. You know, you go through those periods, I think, of a fright, basically; how do I deal with this? And then learning that there’s joy after sight loss, and then sort of, I can do this.
Lise: Yeah, absolutely.
Hoby: What was your sort of journey there? And what were your next steps after your diagnosis?
Lise: The disease that I have is slow moving. And so I received this diagnosis, but I still had a significant amount of vision.
Hoby: Sure.
Lise: And maintained a significant amount of vision. Over the next several years I tried to see whether there were any treatments, but my vision was remaining pretty stable. But in my early 30s, that changed pretty rapidly, and I lost the majority of my vision in about five years.
Hoby: Wow! And did you stay in banking and finance for the foreseeable future?
Lise: I did, however I had a very well-intentioned supervisor, a manager who suggested to me that maybe what I needed to do is just stay home and support my husband, who was starting a new business, and just be a mom and let this blindness thing kind of just happen and don’t have the stress of working anymore.
And this was 25 years ago, so things were much different. Assistive technology wasn’t as readily available. Services for people who were blind were not well known.
Hoby: Right, and she certainly didn’t know about them.
Lise: Certainly didn’t know. And again, it was very well-intentioned. And so I did that. The problem was I have always been really wired to work. It’s intrinsically who I am. And my career is everything to me. And when I didn’t have that anymore I became disconnected.
Hoby: Absolutely.
Lise: And became isolated from family and friends. And then I went through some circumstances, and I needed to go back to work. I hadn’t worked for eight years after I left my job. And so I came to Bosma Enterprises as a volunteer.
Hoby: And how did you hear about Bosma?
Lise: On a wing and a prayer. I had somebody help me do a Google search. I thought that if I could just volunteer somewhere, it would help me understand what I could do, but it would also take the focus off of me, and the fear and the anger, and the depression that I was feeling. Maybe I could help somebody else, but also see what skills I still had left.
Hoby: Absolutely.
Lise: And so I called Bosma Enterprises, asked them if they accepted volunteers who were blind. And then the lady kind of laughed on the phone. She said, “Well, of course, we’re an organization for people who are blind. Come on in.”
Hoby: Wow!
Lise: And I went to Bosma on a tour, and it was sort of the reverse of the situation that I had when I was diagnosed with blindness. It was dark when I went in, and it was light when I came back out. And I was introduced to all these people who were blind and living their lives.
Hoby: And loving life. Wow!
Lise: And they had families and they had careers. And so it was life-changing for me. And so I volunteered for about three months.
Hoby: Wonderful. Just to back up a little bit, I bet you still remember some of the people you met that first day.
Lise: Absolutely, they influenced and changed my life. And so I’m so very dedicated to this organization.
Hoby: Isn’t that amazing? I just want to take a quick step back and chat about seeing that positivity and seeing what is possible. I remember it for me when I met a blind mathematician. I was thinking about getting into math and science in college and a lot of people said no, no, no. And I met a wonderful, very positive-minded PhD in mathematics who was totally blind and had been since birth, and it just uplifted and changed my life.
And I think that it’s incredible how much showing and learning by watching people and talking to people who are living the experience… or all the lived experience, but not just saying, oh, everything’s going to be fine. You need to see that, and feel that, and understand it to say, okay, this could be me.
And especially because you and I, I can tell, are both very driven by work and by doing and just by getting out there and not hearing no as an answer. That’s at least the case for me, and I’m assuming it is for you. It’s like seeing that positivity, and that people are living the lives they want, just means so much.
Lise: It went from being this overwhelming obstacle to being my blindness now is just an inconvenience. It slows me down. I’m impatient and so it slows me down. It’s more of a hassle than a barrier.
Hoby: You and I are two normal humans who are driven and both can be impatient, sitting here having a conversation who just happen to be blind.
Lise: Right.
Hoby: Deal with it as a nuisance.
Lise: Exactly.
Hoby: It’s annoying not to be able to drive.
Lise: It is.
Hoby: It’s really annoying, but it is what it is. Back to your trajectory, you volunteered at Bosma for three months?
Lise: I did.
Hoby: And then what was the next step?
Lise: The next step was that they offered me a position. They were starting an AmeriCorps VISTA program, and so they were recruiting people to participate in that program. And so it’s similar to a domestic Peace Corps, you work on programs, sustainable programs to combat poverty. And so certainly within the blind community there are people who don’t have enough resources, and so I worked on that program. It was a year commitment.
Hoby: Sure.
Lise: And it was just a really fantastic transition for me to go back into the workforce, but also solidify those skills that I knew that I had, but really be able to demonstrate and use them,
Hoby: I love that. And were you in another state, or did you stick in Indiana?
Lise: Yeah, I did that right there at Bosma.
Hoby: Okay, so that that was the VISTA program, but like you said, it was domestic Peace Corps but –
Lise: And you’re placed in a not-for-profit organization within the United States.
Hoby: That’s just amazing. And you’re able to stick right in Indianapolis.
Lise: I was.
Hoby: And do it at Bosma, I love it.
Lise: I was. And Bosma was very close to my home. This relationship with Bosma was meant to be. The stars aligned for me. Finding that on a Google search, them accepting me in and then being able just to be provided opportunity after opportunity. And it was really close to my house, so transportation was not an issue.
Hoby: It was meant to be, yeah. And then after that year with the VISTA program and really being able to help people and see your skills, what happened next?
Lise: I have been in many different roles in Bosma. So after my VISTA assignment was over, that one year commitment, I then became the volunteer coordinator and supervised the program, the VISTA program. And I think I’ve had 13 jobs since I’ve been at Bosma. So I’ve gone from volunteer to being executive vice president in 15 years.
Hoby: I love it.
Lise: And I always like people to know I’m a hard worker.
Hoby: Right.
Lise: I think I’m relatively smart.
Hoby: I think you’re very smart.
Lise: But if there’s no opportunity, it doesn’t matter, right? And so Bosma was the opportunity and I’ve just been able to forge my own way through the organization and excel, but only because that opportunity was there.
Hoby: Wow! And you were not given a favor or a handout to take this job. You earned that position.
Lise: I did.
Hoby: As vice president, as executive vice president. So you oversee pretty much all of operations, marketing, and communications. What is your role currently?
Lise: Sure, so I work with the programs team. We served 1,000 people last year in Indiana, so making sure that –
Hoby: Crazy.
Lise: Yep, absolutely, and employment services.
Hoby: That’s an impressive number.
Lise: I also work with the customer service team. As you said, Hoby, I work with the marketing, PR and communication…
Hoby: Fantastic!
Lise: And then it’s about end sales.
Hoby: Sales of the products that you guys manufacture?
Lise: Yes. Yes, that is correct. And then I work really closely with our CEO on public policy.
Hoby: That’s a really all-enriching role with a lot of responsibility, but it sounds incredibly exciting. Do you notice when people who are blind or visually impaired who are working under you either as direct reports or a few steps below you on the ladder, I imagine, I totally imagine it’s helpful for them to have you on the executive leadership team and someone like your CEO, Jeff Mittman, who we will also be chatting with as well, be blind people, authentically blind people yourself. It sets a role model, and it sets in accountability that is sort of unmatched.
Lise: It does, and I take that very seriously because I didn’t have a role model, right? So I want to make sure that people that I work with understand that life isn’t over when you lose your sight, you just have to find ways to do things differently.
And I’ll tell you a funny story, Hoby, kind of which was a turning point for me. As I said, I work on public policy, and early in my career at Bosma I worked in an advocacy program with National Industries for the Blind and came here.
Hoby: Yeah.
Lise: And that program was life-changing for me.
Hoby: During advocacy week.
Lise: That’s right. And so there was a congressional reception at the end of advocacy week, and there was a cocktail party. And I was really nervous. I was nervous about this trip. I didn’t want to have any faux pas. I wanted to really demonstrate that I was professional. I was really starting to get my confidence back, but I was taking myself pretty seriously. I was making it a little rough on myself. I was holding myself to a pretty high standard because I want to be a role model.
And I went to this congressional cocktail party, and they had passed hors d’oeuvres, and I took a piece of carrot or something off the tray and my colleague elbowed me and said, “Hey, you just ate off that man’s plate.”
Hoby: Love it. I love it, that’s awesome.
Lise: But it broke the ice for me.
Hoby: Yes.
Lise: And I said to him, I said, “This is the reason my husband doesn’t take me to cocktail parties anymore.”
Hoby: And you just made light of the situation.
Lise: There’re times where it’s awkward and it’s weird, but everybody’s got that, and it was okay.
Hoby: It breaks the ice.
Lise: That’s right.
Hoby: It breaks the barriers down.
Lise: That’s right.
Hoby: No, I love that. And it’s so amazing how many times I’ve met really interesting people by just asking for a little bit of assistance.
Lise: Right.
Hoby: You know, “Hey, can you let me know where the man’s room is? And someone who I never, ever would have met or talked to becomes a great friend.
Lise: I have made so many friends in airport restrooms because they’re confusing and there’s no standardization. And who wants to touch everything? And people will just offer assistance and it really demonstrates that there’s good in the world and people want to help each other.
Hoby: People want to help each other. And I think a lot of times it bothers some of us how people can be overly helpful. That’s just people trying to be nice.
Lids: It is.
Hoby: And I think it’s our job as blind people living in this sighted world to constantly educate as to what we can do.
Lise: Right.
Hoby: Yeah, I mean for all of the listeners out there, any time you get to really help show someone what it is that you’re capable of. I highly recommend taking that opportunity and just being a good teacher and not someone who’s really just upset and yelling. There are a lot of teachable moments out there in life.
Lise: They oftentimes don’t know. And I think you’re absolutely right, I want to live in a world where I maybe have to redirect or re-educate someone who’s trying to be helpful, than in a world where everybody’s so afraid that they’re going to make a mistake that they don’t want to help at all.
Hoby: I love that. I want to touch a little bit on this very broad topic, but a very important one, of expectations. And sometimes when we’re applying for jobs, we can be told that we have this conversation of do we disclose our vision loss, or do we not disclose it? What should we do there? But the whole reason we have to even worry about that is because society has artificially low expectations of what we can do.
And as someone who started out sighted and knew that you were going to be losing your vision, how did you bolster your expectations of yourself? And I know you’re always so driven, and push yourself hard, and like to work as hard and as efficiently as possible. So I don’t doubt that you always had high expectations, but what did you do to really raise up your expectations and say, I can do this?
Lise: There was a period that we haven’t talked about, and that’s the period between the time that I left my career in banking and finance and going to Bosma, it was about eight years.
Hoby: Yeah.
Lise: And again, there was this period of disconnection, depression.
Hoby: Low expectations.
Lise: And low expectations. And I distinctly remember, sort of I would have something that I would need to do, and I would just procrastinate because if I didn’t do it tomorrow, there would be time next week to do it because I didn’t have anything going on. And so, I think it was the structure of that volunteering that really is what pulled me out. And I strongly recommend for people who are in this place of despair and don’t know what value that they have, I think volunteerism is a really good transition back to work.
Hoby: Oh, that’s brilliant, Lise. And that’s such a true statement. When I was a freshman in college and I spent my first summer home back in my hometown where I went to high school and grew up, I wanted to work. And it was hard to get hired, so I went to the local museum and volunteered and had an amazing summer. That was the last summer I spent at home. I really wanted to keep myself busy, so I ended up accelerating my college studies and taking classes all subsequent summers of my undergraduate career. But even stepping into that museum and volunteering and making 7 out of their 10 major displays fully accessible with audio recordings, and Braille signage, and large print signage felt so good.
Lise: Right.
Hoby: It’s that sense of being needed to do something that would actually better this place. And volunteership is something that is a lot easier barrier of entry than getting a job.
Lise: It is.
Hoby: If you’re nervous about stepping in and earning that employment and doing the job interview, start by volunteering if you’re timid or nervous, it’s a good first step.
Lise: It’s a great first step. And it also provides you with some structure so that you don’t fall into that, “I don’t have a routine so I don’t have to do something today because I can do it tomorrow, or I can do it next week.” So it was very, very helpful for me to be able to have that structure and have somebody sort of think that I add value again.
Hoby: Exactly. Not sort of, but absolutely think that you add value. And it just raises expectations when we challenge ourselves and take that first step. And when we’re successful at it, we feel so good. And it boosts us, right? It gives us that stimulant and that boost we need to take the next step. And then we just keep climbing the ladder.
Lise: There’s a study that’s out there that I can’t cite where it’s from, but it’s a credible study, certainly. And it says that people fear going blind more than they do having a heart attack, losing a limb, or having a cancer diagnosis. And for me today, that’s so puzzling because last time I checked many of those things are pretty debilitating diseases and often cause death. And I can assure everyone that blindness is not worse than death. It’s not a death sentence.
Hoby: It’s not.
Lise: But I can remember early in my diagnosis, feeling that way.
Hoby: Wow! And please feel free not to answer this question if it feels too personal, but I just want to say that when we were planning this and designing this campaign to bring people back to work and landed on the idea of a podcast, we interviewed over 10 stakeholders in the community. And some of those people were people who were blind, and had lost their sight progressively, and weren’t going back to work because their family said you shouldn’t work. The families had super low expectations.
So I’m curious to hear how it went when you got your diagnosis with your husband and your child, in terms of how were they able to support you and were their expectations high? Or did you have to first lift your expectations of yourself before they realized, hey, this is doable?
Lise: I will say that my first marriage ended because of my reaction to going blind. And so that depression and hopelessness, that was at its boiling point about the time that my son was getting ready to graduate from high school and go on to that next step. And he had always wanted to be in the army, just from the time he was really young. And at that time, when he was in this transition, he decided to go ahead and stay home and go to college because he’s worried about his mom.
Hoby: Yeah.
Lise: And so the lack of resources, the lack of role models, the lack of understanding how to be blind for the family, what expectations they should have, it really had a lot of impact on my family, and certainly what my son ultimately ended up doing. He didn’t think he could leave his mom. So I would say that it was me being successful that really was the catalyst for them being able to go to the next step and understand that I was going to be okay.
And in fact, my son graduated from college, and I was, again, at an advocacy event out here in DC. And he called me, I was in the cab, and he informed me that he had joined the army.
Hoby: I love that. I love it.
Lise: So it’s that testament to that when you’re okay, they’re okay.
Hoby: That’s so true. And I had this experience growing up as well, where my parents had super high expectations, but they sure didn’t think that chemistry was smart for me to study in college. They thought it was pretty impractical. And I had to say to them, I can do this. I can pull through and figure out how to make this work. And they just had to trust me.
So I love what you said, Lise, and thank you for really opening up personally there because the point of this whole discussion is that we’ll need to be the one to show people it’s okay. And it’s so hard, it can be so vulnerable and so hard. Me, and I’m encouraging everyone listening to this, to be strong. Whether you’re a family member, someone who is BVI or have a friend who is BVI, be the one to say you can do this. And if you are blind and you’re nervous, you need to be able to just say I am nervous, but I’m going to go out and take the next step.
Lise: I find myself, even now I travel independently quite often, I often hum to myself as I sort of am in a place where I’m uncomfortable or I’m stretching myself, that’s a soothing mechanism for me so I don’t feel so alone in darkness. I think finding those strategies helps you have the confidence to push yourself, because it’s really easy to just say, I’m going to be blind. I’m going to stay home. I don’t want to be unsafe. But man, you’re missing out on a lot of life.
Hoby: I could talk to you for hours, Lise. I love your energy. I love your tenacity. I love your approach and I really could talk to you for hours. We’re running short on time here, unfortunately. You’ve just given some great advice, but what advice would you give someone who’s feeling depressed, but kind of has this inkling of desire to go out there in the world and get more out of life?
Lise: You have to take the first step. And, for me, the first step was finding an organization with people who are blind.
Hoby: Yeah.
Lise: I didn’t know how to be blind.
Hoby: Absolutely
Lise: I think now there’s certainly hooking up with a friend, if you’re not able to do it yourself, to go online and find resources that connect you to people who are blind. There’s a lot of advocacy groups, but you’re going to be your best advocate. But I also say there’s certainly some mental health issues, depression, that if you’re falling into that place, you need to ask for help. Because you have to work through that before you can take that first step.
Hoby: Never be afraid to ask for help with anything.
Lise: That’s right.
Hoby: It’s okay. We are enough. We’re not alone. And we’re all amazing, in one way or another.
Lise: We are, and we all have a contribution. And the other thing, Hoby, is everybody’s got something. Everybody’s got some obstacle, they’ve got some barrier. They grew up without parents, they grew up in poverty, they had some challenge. Everybody has some challenge, and mine just happens to be blindness.
Hoby: Right, so does mine.
Lise: Yep.
Hoby: Here we are. This has been absolutely incredible, Lise. Thank you so much for your time. And if you don’t mind, I know there are going to be people who listen to this show who want to reach out. Do you mind if we put an email contact in the show notes?
Lise: Please.
Hoby: Thank you so much.
This is the Heard and Empowered podcast and we’ve just had an incredible conversation with Lise Pace. Lise, thank you.
Lise: My pleasure. Thank you so much, Hoby, I appreciate it.
Hoby: Thanks for your time, thanks for your story.
Narrator: Dear listeners, while our official interview with Lise had wrapped up, she continued to share some incredible insights off the record. Fortunately, we were still recording and captured these golden nuggets. We believe there’s immense value in sharing personal stories as they can create a powerful ripple effect of inspiration and empowerment. So here are those extra gems from Lise.
Hoby: That was awesome.
Lise: Oh, Good.
Hoby: That was so much fun. You are incredible and I so appreciate your vulnerability and you’re sharing the truth with people. Thank you. This is what they need to know.
Lise: You’ve got to. You’ve got to. It’s irresponsible not to. It’s not a cakewalk, right?
Hoby: It’s not.
Lise: It’s not for the weary, but you get through it. Once you get through it, you got through it.
Narrator: Lise’s story is a testament to the power of shared experiences, especially within our unique community. If you’re inspired to tell your own story as it relates to NIB, one of its associated nonprofit agencies or NSITE and potentially be a guest on our podcast, we would be thrilled to hear from you. Reach out to us at heardandempowered@nib.org.
Your journey, your challenges and your triumphs within this community could be the very inspiration someone else needs. We’re listening and we’re here to amplify voices that resonate with the mission and spirit of National Industries for the Blind. Send us an email at heardandempowered@nib.org. That is H-E-A-R-D-A-N-D-E-M-P-O-W-E-R-E-D@NIB dot O-R-G.
Thanks for being a part of today’s conversation. Please subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode, give us a five-star rating if we deserve it, and leave a review. Even just one word will help others discover the game-changing content of our show. For more information and free downloadable resources, visit heardandempowered.org. That’s H-E-A-R-D A-N-D E-M-P-O-W-E-R-E-D dot O-R-G. Until next week.
This podcast is for you if you’re asking yourself:
- What kind of job can I find since I’m blind?
- How can I build a fulfilling career despite my visual impairment?
- What are some of the best accessible places to work?
- Are there companies that really care about DEI?
- What resources are available to help BVI persons succeed professionally?
- How can I overcome workplace biases and challenges as BVI?
- What steps can I take to get started and find a meaningful job?
- Where can I find employers who value my skills and abilities?
- How can I ask for BVI accommodations at work?
- Should I disclose or not my visual impairment?
Every week, the show will dive into one or more of these topics and beyond.
Subscribe now so you don’t miss a single episode!
About National Industries for the Blind:
Since 1938, National Industries for the Blind (NIB) has focused on enhancing the opportunities for economic and personal independence of people who are blind, primarily through creating, sustaining, and improving employment. NIB and its network of associated nonprofit agencies are the nation’s largest employer of people who are blind through the manufacture and provision of SKILCRAFT® and many other products and services of the AbilityOne® Program.
For more information about NIB, visit NIB.org.
