Challenge the exclusion so many with chronic illness/disability face and reshape everyone’s perception (including your own person mindset). That’s what has driven the ultimate female founder warrior, Tiffany Yu. After a car accident as a child resulted in her personal experience living with brachial plexus palsy (nerve damage in her right arm), Tiffany had to grow up within the framework of others’ opinions on her disability. And as she found her voice, and realized the stereotypes society has thrust upon her solely because of her disability, Tiffany became motivated to challenge these barriers. Diversability is a social enterprise that works to rebrand disability through the power of community, storytelling, and working with the non-disabled community to show ways inclusivity is a successful choice to make.  Along with Diversability, Tiffany has used her stellar social media platform to also become a public speaker, founder of Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter which awards micro-grants to disability projects, and this year winning California Miss Amazing Queen to use her platform for women/girls with disabilities. Talk about having disability royalty on InvisiYouth Chat Sessions podcast! This episode, Dominique and Tiffany list off lots of Tiffany’s lasts—like the last Instagram follow, public speaking event, and home cooked meal (but Tiffany jokes she’ll focus more about being home than her cooking skills), break all the pillars down that hold up our chronic illness/disability “glass ceiling,” give tips to silence the “inner monologue hater” that makes us self-conscious of our chronic illness/disability, remind everyone that success and joy are NOT exclusive to healthy/non-disabled people, and gets super real on why perpetuating the negative stigmas on chronic illness/disability need to be dissolved on two levels—our personal journey and how the media/brands see it. When we get to our intermission story time, it’s about to get super freaking because we discover not only the story behind Tiffany’s stunning split artwork that embodies how Tiffany “embraces the elephant in the room” that is her disability, but also how BOTH Dominique and Tiffany have carry images of a little girl hugging an elephant. How super kismet is that! And the second half this episode is even better than the first! Dominique and Tiffany discuss how leading life with vulnerability breathes strength on the daily, encourage the power of DMs to all those activist idols you follow, talk about the power of language, advise us ways to erase the plague of being a burden from our mindsets so we can embrace the power of YES, talk how-to’s when it comes to needing help when you’re an introvert that has a chronic illness/disability, ways our healthy/non-disabled counterparts can ask questions about our health struggles while being okay with us saying NO, establish the winning strategy of ally-ship which is a pillar for both Diversability and InvisiYouth as they demand the outside chronic illness/disability community be at the table when discussing accessibility and accurate representation, and create a guidebook on feeling comfortable discussing disability between friends and public or guide to feeling confident in our own skin. Tiffany is proof that we must liberate ourselves from the false perceptions of chronic illness/disability, and that diversity is always a strength. Want that self-growth and conversation-opener…listen to this podcast!

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