Expanding Inclusivity: The Neurodivergent Advantage

Join Leighann Lovely on the Love Your Sales Podcast as she dives deep into an enlightening conversation with Denise Schamens, co-founder and executive director of Good Friend Inc. Discover Denise’s personal journey inspired by her son's autism diagnosis and how it led her to create an inclusive community and successful nonprofit. Learn about Good Friend Inc.'s mission to develop films and training curriculums that promote neurodiversity in schools and workplaces. Explore the challenges and successes Denise faces in advocating for neurodivergent individuals in the corporate world. This episode is packed with insights on the importance of inclusivity and the unique strengths neurodivergent individuals bring to any setting. Tune in for an inspiring discussion that highlights the value of diverse thinkers and the push towards more inclusive work environments.

Contact Denise –

Website – www.Goodfriendinc.com

Email - [e-mail]   

 

Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Sales Rescue – www.rescuemysales.com

Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/

The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489

 

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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I'm very excited today. I am joined by Denise Shamans. She is the co-founder and executive director of Good Friend Inc. Welcome, Denise. I'd love for you [00:01:00] to introduce yourself and your business.

Denise Schamens: Yeah. Hello. Hello. Hello. Um, my, my business is called good friend.

Inc is a nonprofit and we, uh, started back in 2007 and it really, uh, came out of, um, the experience that I was having in my family. So my background is, uh, I'm a creative. I went to school for fine art and commercial art. And then I started having my boys, my two boys, um, who are only 19 months apart. And then I do have a third, my daughter who is college age.

Um, but my middle son, Sam was diagnosed with autism just at three. Uh, so I've been in the autism neurodivergent space for over 20. Five years, he's going to be 26 this week. Um, and it, um, really came out of a desire for a community that was [00:02:00] accepting of his differences. And I found, um, along the path. I had many other hats.

I was a. Parent liaison for the school district of Waukesha. I did that for about 10 years and had a support group, um, was only reaching just a handful of families at the time and, uh, was a large district. We had over 150 families that had some sort of disability or in place. Um, and I couldn't reach them, but what I ended up doing was going into my son's classroom in first, second grade and sitting down with his peers and telling them about him and how they could relate to him, understanding that his autism affected him mostly in his speaking ability.

Um, Not to say that he's nonverbal, he has a lot to say, but can't really get it out. And so, uh, forming friendships was difficult for him. But what I did find was, you know, 27 of his peers were more than happy to be his friend. They just [00:03:00] wanted to know what was up and at the time there was only 1 guidance counselor traveling to all of those 17 elementary schools.

So we weren't talking about differences back then. Um, so I saw a need there. And, uh, there was another