Five years ago, Steph Cutler was told she was going to lose her sight. As she explains to Able, though, she was determined it wasn’t going to ruin her life.

When I was told I would lose my central vision, I was a successful fashion designer – working hard and playing hard – in London.

At the time I had no idea what it actually meant, but as I sat in the hospital I remember making a very conscious decision – whatever “central vision loss” was, it would not mean the end for Steph Cutler.

I moved to the Midlands to be with my family when my sight began to deteriorate, setting myself the short term goal of getting back into work and the long term goal of getting my life back to where it was.

While learning to live with my acquired impairment, I experienced for the first time the many barriers that disable people, and felt that there was a strong social, legal and business case for organisations to become more aware and provide more accessible services. This, coupled with my sudden difficulty in gaining an interview (let alone a job!) led me to stick a big two fingers up to those employers and employ myself! I set up Open Eyed, a disability equality consultancy which supports organisations to make their services and opportunities inclusive to everyone. We provide non-judgemental training and consultancy on every aspect of disability equality.

While setting up and running Open Eyed, many disabled people and those with long term health conditions – as well as organisations that support them – began to ask me to share my own experiences. While I responded to everyone personally, I felt I could offer more – which is how Making Lemonade evolved. Why that name? Well, I firmly believe that if life deals you lemons then the best thing to do is…

Making Lemonade predominantly helps disabled people achieve their goals and potential by providing professional personal coaching and training workshops. The main areas we support people in are employment, enterprise and leadership – all areas I am personally passionate about. Five years ago I left behind my career, my salary, my friends and lifestyle. I relocated, retrained and adapted to the challenges brought by my sight loss. I remained pretty positive throughout this time, though I became despondent when I struggled to find work. I am now totally committed to making employment more available to disabled people and work with both job seekers and employers. During the last year I’m proud we’ve been able to support many people into meaningful employment.

Admittedly, being very much a “people person”, I did worry that I might be lonely running my own business, but have found the reality to be the complete opposite. Since setting up Open Eyed and Making Lemonade I have met so many amazing people and have made many great friends and contacts. I have also found self-employment to be an excellent option, since I can work in a way that suits me best. That’s the reason why I believe self-employment is a great choice for disabled people and I love supporting other budding disabled entrepreneurs.

We also deliver our innovative personal leadership programme to groups of employees within organisations, as well as contributing to existing leadership programmes. Many of those who have participated in our programmes have
gone on to achieve amazing things as a result of their commitment and our support.

I firmly believe that no one achieves anything alone. At times we all need quality advice and appropriate support to help us believe we can make it – and so go on to do just that! It has taken a huge amount of work to get to where I am now, but it’s been well worth the effort. Both my businesses are growing, I love being my own boss, and I love doing what I do!

Related posts:

  1. Arts: Making Light of Disability Whether it is Jim Davidson refusing to perform in Plymouth...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.