226 - Your Disability Changed Your Life. It Didn't End Your Possibilities! - Shay Edmonds
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Goodpods In this episode of The Inclusive Dad podcast, host AAron sits down with Shay Edmonds, a legally blind former engineer who shares his journey of navigating disability, losing his independence, and rebuilding his identity. Shay opens up about the emotional impact of vision loss, relationships, dating, parenting, and learning to ask for help. He explains how the stories we tell ourselves can keep us playing small and why redefining who we are after a major life change matters. Through his work with Reinvention Works, Shay helps individuals and families rediscover their value, purpose, and possibilities. It's time to stop playing small!
Key Takeaways:
Redefining Identity – A major life change can challenge everything you thought you knew about yourself, but disability doesn't erase who you are.
Stop Playing Small – Staying inside your comfort zone may feel safe, but it can also prevent you from experiencing a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Ask For Help – Communicating what you need and allowing others to support you can open doors to experiences you might otherwise avoid.
Know Your Worth – Your disability doesn't determine your value, your ability to be loved, or what you deserve in relationships.
Rethink Inclusion – Inclusion means recognizing that everyone has challenges, visible or invisible, and treating people with kindness, understanding, and value.
Shay Edmonds’ definition of inclusion:
Inclusion is creating opportunities for everyone to participate, belong, and find purpose within a group or society.
Shay Edmonds’ Bio:
Shay Edmonds is the founder of Reinvention Works, a human development company focused on what happens after life changes in ways we never planned for.
After losing most of his vision as an adult, Shay experienced firsthand a gap that millions of people encounter: treatment may address what happened to you, but it doesn’t necessarily teach you how to build a life you want afterward.
That experience became the foundation for his work exploring how people navigate acquired disability and major life disruption. His conversations challenge traditional ideas about resilience and focus instead on identity, attention, energy, adaptation, and the decisions we make when the old version of life no longer fits.
Shay also talks candidly about the parts of disability that often receive far less attention: rebuilding a career when the work you once did may no longer fit, navigating dating and relationships when independence and confidence have changed, developing new friendships and social connections, redefining success, and learning how to participate fully in a world that wasn't necessarily designed with you in mind.
His perspective extends beyond disability to anyone facing a major transition that forces the question: Who am I now, and what do I want the next version of my life to look like?
Shay is also the author of Stop the Self Sabotage: You’re Not Broken, You’re Unfinished, and brings a candid, practical, and sometimes humorous perspective to the complicated work of figuring out what comes next.
Connect with Shay Edmonds:
Website: https://reinventionworksonline.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564712281657
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reinvention_works/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reinvention-works/posts/?feedView=all
Buy His Book: https://a.co/d/03N6OeIW
SPAM© Count:
Host:
Yes
Current Guest:
No
Cumulative Guest Stats:
Yes - 97
No - 127
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Founder - Reinvention Works
Shay Edmonds is the founder of Reinvention Works, a human development company focused on what happens after life changes in ways we never planned for.
After losing most of his vision as an adult, Shay experienced firsthand a gap that millions of people encounter: treatment may address what happened to you, but it doesn’t necessarily teach you how to build a life you want afterward.
That experience became the foundation for his work exploring how people navigate acquired disability and major life disruption. His conversations challenge traditional ideas about resilience and focus instead on identity, attention, energy, adaptation, and the decisions we make when the old version of life no longer fits.
Shay also talks candidly about the parts of disability that often receive far less attention: rebuilding a career when the work you once did may no longer fit, navigating dating and relationships when independence and confidence have changed, developing new friendships and social connections, redefining success, and learning how to participate fully in a world that wasn't necessarily designed with you in mind.
His perspective extends beyond disability to anyone facing a major transition that forces the question: Who am I now, and what do I want the next version of my life to look like?
Shay is also the author of Stop the Self Sabotage: You’re Not Broken, You’re Unfinished, and brings a candid, practical, and sometimes humorous perspective to the complicated work of figuring out what comes next.
