Dreams do come true with a combination of persistence, chutzpah, luck and networking all rolled together as one.
This wonderful journey of networking stated when I joined the Ventura County Professional contact Milt Wright & Associated, Inc., in Chatsworth, CA. They did organizational design, training and development, along the lines of disability awareness, which has always been my focus, since awareness is the first step to eradicating prejudices towards people with disabilities.
I figured that the best way to get to know someone at Milt Wright was to order a book from their catalog: ‘The Job Placement ADA (Americans with Disabilities) Connection. After reading through part of the book, I had planned on calling to get to know one of the workers there. Milt Wright was doing their own marketing, and, Lynda Jean Groh, from Milt Wright, called me. After talking on the phone once a week for about two months, I talked Lynda Jean into meeting me for lunch in Thousand Oaks at Roxy’s Deli (my treat).
Through the development of a genuine friendship, Lynda Jean has also had given me advice on ways of better marketing myself to the public. She focused on the importance of brochures, a website, and business cards.
In 1999, my website was created. I realized how many more people I could reach through the website. No more geographic barriers! The same with email!
My current website is: www.capablecarol.com. And, my current email is: [email protected]. The website, along with my social media sites on both Linked-In and Facebook (Capable Carol), have helped to add validity to what I have been doing through motivational speaking and journalism.
I had found out through having looked at the Milt Wright & Associates, Inc. website in May of 2001 that a conference was taking place in Oxnard in the early summer of 2001 about ways ‘Employees Could Shine.’ I was able to come to the first morning presentation. Then, at lunch, I met Dianne Owens, the Vice President of Curtis & Associates. Curtis & Associates cosponsored the event. They provided employment communication consulting. With Diane, I talked about my disability awareness game idea: Call Me Capable.
Diane Owens and I kept in touch over the summer. She talked about me, my game idea, and my website to Bryan Kuntz, wo was the Assistant Director-Product Department for Curtis & Associates, Inc., in Nebraska.
In September of 2001, Diane Owens invited me to a breakfast and talk put on by Curtis & Associates, Inc., in Oxnard. After the Keynote talk, I was able to talk with Bryan Kuntz. I gave him a copy of the Call Me Capable Game rules and the game questions. When I talked to Bryan in mid-October, he said that he was forwarding my game material to Dr. Franklin Rubenstein in Connecticut, who was the owner of Franklin Learning Systems. Then, on November 1st, I talked to Franklin and he said that he was interested on working with me on the further production and the eventual publication by the end of 2002 of the Call Me Capable Game ™
I’m proud to say that Franklin and I refined the game questions, added another category, and developed a game board together. I’m also proud to say that the Call Me Capable Game ™ was published by three different publishers from 2002-2017! Franklin even sold it internationally, which was mainly to England and Canada.
Thus, what a difference a network makes! Continue to network! It does pay off! And, dreams do come true!