Dr. LaMondré Pough is an internationally recognized speaker, entrepreneur, and disability rights advocate whose work sits at the intersection of leadership, inclusion, and lived experience. As the CEO of Billion Strong, a global nonprofit uniting people with disabilities across cultures and continents, he champions empowerment, identity, and collective voice. He also serves as the Chief Sustainability Officer for Ruh Global IMPACT and Chairman of Arts Access South Carolina, leveraging these platforms to advance equity in everything from digital inclusion to cultural accessibility. Born with spinal muscular atrophy and navigating the world as a Black man with a disability, Dr. Pough brings a deeply personal, intersectional lens to every conversation he leads. He is known for his powerful storytelling, his commitment to authentic leadership, and his unwavering belief that true inclusion begins with honoring lived experiences. Whether he's training organizations, hosting one of his podcasts like My Big Full Authentic Life, or mentoring future leaders, Dr. Pough is a passionate force for transformation—helping others not just survive, but thrive with purpose. TRANSCRIPT:

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Music.

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Welcome to podcasts by Dr Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr Kirk Adams.

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Welcome everybody to podcasts by Dr Kirk Adams, I am said, Dr Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington, where rain is lashing against the windows of my office here and with me today, I have lamondre Pugh mondre is an authentic leadership advocate and professional speaker. I have had the privilege of getting to know a bit over the past couple of years. We

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broke bread together here in Seattle last summer when he was here speaking at a conference. So great to connect with you again virtually. Lamondre Listen. It's a it's a pleasure to be with you, Kirk as always. And I'll just give a super, uh, top level headline for those listening who might not know who I am. I am again, Dr Kirk Adams, I'm immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, which is Helen Keller's organization. I was proud to lead that organization. Prior to that, the same roles here at the Lighthouse for the Blind in Seattle, which is a social enterprise employing blind and deaf, blind people in a variety of businesses and supporting people in thriving, thriving careers. I hold a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University, where I did an for my dissertation, I did an ethnographic study of blind adults successfully employed in large American corporations. I learned a lot through that process about the success factors for employment people who are blind, and the barriers which I've certainly experienced myself in my life as a frustrated, disabled job seeker, disabled employee of a major corporation or two, and then in those leadership roles at some major nonprofits, where I had the opportunity to employ a lot of people who are blind

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and lamondre and I encountered one another as our advocacy paths intersected, and I asked him to join me today and to talk a little bit about his Journey.

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My impairment, personally, is visual. I my retina is detached when I was five, and so I am totally blind. And as as we know, an impairment does not necessarily equal disability. That we are placed in disabling situations when the environment we're in, digital, social built

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does not fit well with our personal characteristics. So the little example I use often is if I'm running a board meeting and I have my agenda and my financials and my midi reports in Braille,

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my impairment doesn't matter. I'm not in a disabling situation at all. I can run the meeting as well as anyone that does not have said impairment. However, if you hand me a stack of print material, I my impairment does not fit well with the built environment of visual print. So that that puts me that's a disabling situation. So as lamondre and I have gotten to know each other,

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we I believe we share the philosophy that

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the lived experience of these disabling situations allows us to develop some really unique strengths in the areas of resilience and creativity and problem solving. And, you know, I had the privilege of seeing lamondre lead a conference session, and I got to hear some of his words of wisdom that he's gained through his life experience as a person with impairments and the discipline disable these situations we find ourselves in. So lamondre, you know, I don't have any set agenda here today. I just really would love to hear from you your journey, what's brought you to the point you're at now, what, what you're currently focused on, and what, what your vision for your future is, Where, where are you headed? What are you going to be accomplishing? A.

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So down the road here, oh, absolutely, I will just hand the talking stick to you, and I will reserve the right to interrupt you with questions as you speak. So thanks so much for being here. Oh, no man, listen. Thank you first of all for inviting me to your platform at any time that we have the opportunity to get together. I always learn something from you. I always learn something new about you, and it's always it's always a really refreshing conversation. So I appreciate the person that you are on, the journey that you've been on, and how you're willing to share, how you're willing to share your insights and your experiences, and it's really about lifting others up, and honestly, that's what my journey is about. I like you. Am a person with a disability. I have spinal muscular atrophy as a result of spinal muscular atrophy, I'm a full time wheelchair user.

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I need assistance with everything in terms of, you know, anything physical, bathing, getting out of bed, feeding, all of those things I need assistance with. The only things that I really don't need very much help with is thinking and speaking. And so I'm one person who believes that you lean into your strengths, and that's probably where I became a speaker, because I am leaning in to the strength of this big mouth that I have,

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but what I've committed myself to is I committed myself to really helping people live more empowered lives, and I created this philosophy that I live by. It's called the live, big, live full and live authentic philosophy, and we can talk a little bit more about that as it progresses, but what that was, or the way that that came about, was me really trying to navigate a world where things are not necessarily set up for people like me. And I'm talking physically, I'm talking socially, I'm even talking economically, and what I realized was that I am truly responsible for my own outcomes, but having said that, I also must stand up, assert and advocate for the change that we want to see. And because of that, this philosophy really was birthed out of me just living my life the way that I had to, with all those compensatory skills that kick in and and those ways of finding unique and innovative solutions to problems that can cease being a problem once we figure out a way to accommodate for those things. And what I'm doing now is I'm simply teaching organizations and individuals how to apply this philosophy to create number one, leaders that lead from a place of value, that lead from a place of integrity, and who really want to have a positive impact in their world. But then the other thing about that is not only just to develop those leaders, but to help create environment where people can really develop a sense of belonging and begin to thrive, regardless as to what societal barriers have been put in front of them. So that's me in a nutshell. Do a lot of advocating in terms of disabilities, working with number of different organizations in terms of volunteering and just helping to make the world a better place overall.

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And lamondre,

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you just talked about helping organizations develop leaders that are coming from authentic places. I'm paraphrasing, can you? Can you? Leadership is something I am very interested in

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as I transition from the corporate world of banking and finance after my first 10 years of the work world, into the nonprofit sector, and really got clear that I should be in the nonprofit sector, and I should be in leadership roles, and I should be working to create opportunities for other people with disabilities to thrive. I saw a leadership voice, a leadership vacuum. I saw people in nominal leadership roles, CEOs and executive directors, who were very much maintaining a status quo,

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who were very risk averse.

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I didn't see a lot of innovation and creativity at the leadership level. So I love for you to talk about leadership, what what it means to you, how you embrace your leadership opportunities and and how do you work with organizations through your advocacy to help strengthen leadership?

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Uh, what, what, whatever you want to talk about in the broad category of leadership. I'd love to hear it. No, okay, I and I appreciate that too. Well, you know, I like you.

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I believe, or let me say this, I did indeed see a vacuum in leadership, and now I actually see what I believe is a crisis in leadership, not just in the disability community, but across the board. You know, we live in a very

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social media driven environment right now, and as much as we, as much as we don't, might not necessarily want to admit it, I think we have seen how platform and how

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the desire for likes and follow followers, and

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I would say

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affirmation from others has really created problems for us. We see people that confuse platform with integrity, or the fact that you have a high follower count means that you are an authority to be listened to and to give credibility to and honestly. Those things are not necessarily true.

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We see instances playing out before us every day, of people who are in leadership positions, who have the title, but they don't necessarily have the empathy, the capacity, or even the will to really lead for positive change. Now we see a lot of people doing things that's really about, as as my folks from Jamaica would say about beating themselves up. But the truth is that is not what leadership in my in my estimation of it really is, because I recognize that people have different definitions for what leadership is. And for me, leadership is really about influence. And I like to say authentic leadership is really about positive influence, about leadership that is based in integrity, about people who are guided by their values, their principles and their beliefs in order to create a positive impact in the world to find to make the human condition better than what they found it in and this is the kind of leadership that I believe that we are missing. I believe that this is the kind of leadership that is going to be required in order for us to really advance just as as people, to really save this planet in order to

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I really speak to the good of humanity. I'll put it that way, and and this is the mission that I'm on. And obviously, even throughout my years, you know, advocating within the disability community, we've seen that now I've met some incredible leaders who have poured into me, who have who have given me opportunities, and who have opened doors, and now I feel like it's my job to help do that with others, and that's the mission. That's the mission that I'm on

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in your role

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of influence, your opportunities to influence, we know you're a professional speaker, so you you get in front of audiences, and so if you're in front of an audience of, say, corporate senior managers at a company,

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what give us a taste of the types of messages and communications that that you share in order To help move things toward that I that ideal picture of authentic leadership that you just described absolutely well. First of all, again, I go back to being authentic, being real about who you are and what it is that you want to contribute. How do you want to serve? How do you want the world? How do you want to show up in the world in terms of you as an individual, in terms of your organization, and what impact, what impact are you looking to make? And what I do is I customize things, but I find what it is that they want to do, where they want to go, and my goal is to help them achieve that. Now, the other piece of what I do in helping them achieve that is I believe that number one, a part of our strength is our diversity. I believe that when you really embrace our differences, when you really embrace different thoughts, different perspectives, different lived experiences, that is the engine that drives innovation. As you said earlier in your opening statement, Kirk, we talk about, you know, people with disabilities being problem solvers. Well, guess what? We're problem solvers, because we have to be. We have to figure out ways to traverse a world that was not necessarily designed by us, for us, but nonetheless, if we still want to.

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Have an impact. If we still want to survive and not only survive but thrive, we've got to come up with some innovative solutions. And that just does not stop because we figured out how you can access documents or how I can access a curb cut. It doesn't stop there. That innovation, that problem solving skills, goes throughout every aspect of my life, and it's not just people with disabilities, it's also other people who may have been from traditionally marginalized communities, they've had to develop some compensatory skills. So why not take those skills and apply them to make your company better? Why not take those skills and apply that to increase your bottom line? Why not take those skills and apply them to make your place of business a place where people want to work, where they feel seen, heard and appreciated, and want to give you their very best. You want the kind of people in your organization where they could leave, start their own, do their own thing, but they don't want to, because they love the impact that you're making, and they love the contribution that you're given to their lives. That's the kind of organizations that I help people build wonderful so you say you customize, which makes total sense, depending on who the audience is, and say, wanting to find out what what they're trying to accomplish.

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Up to you whether you name names or not, name names. But can you just think of an organization you worked with and you customize an approach? And give us just a little sense of how you would work. Work with an organization that engages you as a as a speaker, absolutely. Well, there's several different organizations that I have worked with, and they range from corporations all the way to nonprofit organizations, even to some governmental entities, and every situation is different. Now, primarily, I'm a trainer and a speaker. That's what I do. I go in an organization, and if they have a need for a training, that's what we do, and we build trainings specifically for them. I just recently, just last week, two weeks ago, did a workshop, an intensive workshop, for an advocacy organization who's really trying to deal with the struggles that's happening right now. They're an advocacy or an advocacy organization that really about helping people with disabilities to live their lives more independently and obviously with what's happening in the States right now, there's a big threat that they're facing in terms of funding, in terms of in terms of how they actually get a major part of their budget. And their leaders are obviously stressed. Their leaders are trying to figure out, how do they keep their How do they keep their teams motivated and engaged in times of uncertainty? So I have this thing that I created. It's called the real power framework, and basically it is the nine pillars of what I call authentic leadership. Okay, now we're now, we're getting there. Absolutely it's the nine pillars of authentic leadership, and what I did with them. And what are those nine pillars? I'm glad you asked Kurt, number one, it's real power. Real Power is an acronym, so the acronym spells out real power. All right, so I'm taking notes. All right. Here we go. The first one is rooted, and this is being rooted in your values and self awareness understanding who you are, because in order to lead authentically, you must first know who you are and be a person that's led by your core values. The second thing is the E empowered, empowered through emotional clarity and emotional connection. So we're talking about the empathy part. We're talking about emotional intelligence, about being able to understand where you are and understand where other people are and what triggers them and what triggers you, and having measured responses to that, then the next letter is the A in real and that's accountability, being true to your word and your vision, making certain that you stick to what the mission of the organization is, and even your own personal mission, and that you show up and you're consistent in following through with what you said. Then the next thing is the L, and that's leading in action. That's about leading with intentionality that is not just ideas, but we're looking to for ways that we can lead and be effective in what it is that we're doing. Now, the P in power stands for psychological safety, and this is about creating the environments, creating rules.

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Rooms where others feel seen and heard, but in an authentic way, in a real way, not this, not this, not this fake optimism thing, but really creating environments where people can express what they're thinking, what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, without being judged, or without feeling that there may be some kind of retaliation, in other words, creating safe spaces for the people that you're serving by leading. Then the next one is the O, because that was P O. So the O is for being open, being open to feedback, being open to growth, being open to change. There is

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so many things. There are so many things that's going on right now in terms of how quickly change is coming. Now, we can hunker down and cower, or we can just accept the fact that change is inevitable, and in order for us to not only survive but to thrive in it, we have to be open to change and figure out how our vision can best support the mission of what's changing around us. So that's what it is. It's about being open, and then the W is having a willingness to collaborate by CO creating instead of controlling, by allowing that, that innovation that we talked about, that you intrinsically get from diversity and from people from different backgrounds, By allowing that to have space by allowing that to breathe. So being open and willing to collaborate, I often say it's amazing what you can accomplish when you're willing to let go some of some of the control and allow people to contribute what they can to a thing. And it's amazing, many times what ends up happening is you end up growing something far better, far bigger than you ever even imagined yourself. So the willingness to collaborate, and then the E, the last E in power, is about being emotionally resilient, because, listen, challenges are going to come. Change is going to come, but when it does come, it's about having the emotional resilience to withstand that, to process it, to see it for what it is, and bounce back. You know, it's almost cliche when people say this now, but it's true, and this is something that I live by. It's not about how many times you get knocked down, it's about how many times you get back up. And the truth is emotional resilience allows you to get back up, to bounce back, and then the R the final thing is to be results oriented. And all I mean by that is that we need to focus, to focus on purpose driven impact. Listen, we can be passionate about things all we want to. We can have all of the the

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we can have, all of the empathy we can have, all the emotional intelligence we can have all of those things firing on all cylinders. But if we're not accomplishing something, if we're not actually moving the mission forward, then what is it for? Then why are we doing that? Leadership is also not just influence, but it's influenced with impact. What are we changing? What are we doing? What are we creating? What are we building? How are we accomplishing what it is, and how do we know that we're accomplishing what it is? So that was the fastest I have ever explained my real power frame like I wrote them all. So I will, I will read them over and reflect. So

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you very recently did customized training for a disability advocacy organization that's obviously feeling the chaos. And you said earlier that you need to identify what your

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client, customer of the organization you're working with. What? What are they trying to accomplish? So, right, in this case, what? What, what were they wanting from the training? What, what were they what were they intending that you would help them move forward with? Well, what they really were looking at is ways to help develop their leaders further, because they have some incredible leads. And this was really a great group to work with. They have some incredible emerging leaders, but honestly, many of them liked the confidence to feel like they could really make a difference in and you know, you mentioned something earlier, as as we were chatting about.

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Out some of the leaders that you saw were being risk averse, and this is one of the issues that we saw. And sometimes in leadership, you have to take risk. Now that doesn't mean that you take, you know, just wild, flagrant things that, right? Hey, we could just sink the entire ship, but you have to be willing. You have to be willing to risk something. Yes, leadership requires sacrifice. Sometimes, bottom line, yeah, bottom line, you have to be willing to look silly. Sometimes, you have to be willing to fail. And if you do, at least create the environment where, number one, you are empowered enough and emotionally mature enough to own up to it that you have the accountability to say, Yep, my bad. I messed up here. And those kinds of things. When you bring those kinds of things to the table, you empower people in ways unimaginable. So one of the main problems that they had was just that was having leaders Emerging Leaders giving them the confidence and the tools that they need and able to really grow into the roles that they that they've been working in.

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I just makes me think of something I learned when I was at the American Foundation for the Blind, and it was a financial turnaround situation on a pretty dire one. As far as the revenue streams had shifted and

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they were they had not adapted quickly enough, and maybe it was wouldn't have been possible to adapt quickly enough to the very big changes they had in the revenue streams, which were related to be quests that were generated by Helen Keller's work. But

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one of the, one of the people I brought in to help with strategic planning said, you know, you're going to have to do, you're going to have to do some things that are other some, some people might consider some of the things you're doing to be pretty wild. And he said, we just want to, we want to maintain our understanding of the difference between wild and reckless. So when you were speaking of the need to take risks, that's that's what came to mind. Sometimes you got to do some things that are going to disrupt and shake things up. Some people might think they're wild, but again, if you're a steward of an organization, you can't be reckless. That's a little bit of a fine line. Oh, absolutely there is. And I'll even, you know, look at it from this perspective, in this day and age, the way that things are now, anything you do that is progressive or different is going to be a risk anything you do right now. So the thing is to really get do your homework, do what you can. But the thing after that is to step fearlessly, to step with intention. Once you've done your homework, once you've once you've done the things that you could do, to make certain that you know, everything that you could think of is covered step forward. There is a bravery in that, there is a confidence, there is a courage that's required to do that, and knowing that you could fall, that you could fail, but failure is not the end. All. Learn from it. People don't need perfect leaders. And see this is one of the things that I think holds a lot of people back from really embracing who they are as leaders. They think to themselves, what if I fail? What if I mess up? What if I'm not the person that they think that I am and I'm exposed? Well, here's the deal. There is not one perfect leader. Nowhere on this earth, no human. No human is perfect. And the truth is, the world doesn't need your perfection. The world needs your presence. The world doesn't need leaders who have not made mistakes. The world needs leaders who have learned from those mistakes and are willing to still move forward. And this is the message. This is what I'm passionate about. This is what I'm trying to bring to the table. And I'll tell you, I also work with major corporations as well. I recently did a training with a major corporation. This was a series of training, and we were dealing with their C suite and their management level teams. And this was a manufacturing organization, and they are located in a place where the company is an international company, not from the States. However, there they have a hub here, and the place that they put their hub,

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the culture was really different than what they were used to, and they were having some serious problems. And the leaders and the management started counting or started categorizing these folks, and.

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Is, they don't want to work. They're coddled,

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you know, if we just throw money at them, you know, that'll change it. And what ended up happening was, in the middle of one of their meetings, in the middle of one of their meetings, they announced a bonus. They announced a bonus that was a significant bonus with some real money, and they did not get the reaction they expected. Instead of cheering on applause, they got booed,

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an audible Boo from the audience, and this rocked them. And so I was called, and they found me on LinkedIn, which was amazing to me. They found me on LinkedIn. We started yes

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and and we started a conversation, and I put together something for them that would help them understand the culture, that helped to break down some of the barriers,

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and also also help them to understand that not everything is fixed with money. People want to be seen, heard, right and valued. I have to ask, what was the emotion that was stirred in their their people, that led them to boo, being told they were getting a bonus? Well, what was, what was about that, that that was the thing. It was a very closed off environment, and people were not consulted as to what the real need was. Now, of course, they were happy for money, but that did not address their more immediate problems. These people were way overworked, way overworked. I mean, so much so that some of the preliminary work that we did, you know, of course, we asked about, what are the challenges, what are the issues? And you allowed them to do that anonymously, and they were talking about how, you know, they had family vacations planned that had been approved, and it was taken away, okay, because of all the stuff that say, Oh, we don't want your hush money. We want you to fix the problem, fix what the problem is, and we want you to see us as people. We want you to see us as humans. It was amazing to me. I one of the exercises that I did, and I did a number of trainings with them, but one of the exercises I did, I did this with the upper level management and some folks from the C suite and in the room, I asked them, I said, What made you choose this particular organization? What made you choose? And it's a very prestigious organization. So they said things like, you know, the challenge, the pride of being associated with the such, such an

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August legacy. And they talked about what they wanted for their families and what they wanted to show their kids, and how they how they wanted to have a legacy in terms of their careers. And as they said this, it was beautiful. It was really, really beautiful. Their hearts were open. And then I asked them about the people that they complained about, I said, and what was their reason? Why would they choose to come to this place? Do you think that they saw the prestige? Do you think that they have dreams and aspirations? Have you asked them about it? And it was funny, because having them in that emotional place, and then putting that same thing to the people that they were complaining about, the people that booed them, it changed something, because they said they never thought about it. They never thought about what motivated those people to get out of bed every day. It wasn't just a paycheck. You're paying them well, it wasn't just a paycheck. These people have dreams, hopes and aspirations. It was almost like they needed to see them as human. They needed to see them as having the same desires, dreams and aspirations. Everybody wants their children to go to good schools and be safe and be well educated. These people do too. They want to see you as a part of the community. They want to be a part of the community, and they want you to be a part of it too. So it was really kind of level setting.

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So I feel that you're very adept and intuitive and attuned to understand what the right question is to ask.

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I hope so,

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because that's what so much of leadership is. It's about asking the right questions. Yeah, absolutely so Wow. This time has flown by, but I do want to ask about your what,

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what does stepping out fearlessly for lamondre Pugh look like here over the next couple of years. What are you? What are you? What are you as aspiring to create in your life and with your advocacy? Well, I tell you,

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Okay, that's a great question, because this last the.

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Last year has been super challenging for me, and I've had to make a major pivot in terms of of my business and the approach. But I'll tell you, and this is just being transparent and vulnerable. This is one of the scariest things that I've ever had to do in terms of in terms of putting something that I have held as a personal philosophy and a personal guidepost for my life, and now sharing it with the world. And this is,

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this is what my real power framework was built on. It's a philosophy that I have, and it's called Live, big, live full and live authentic. And I'm putting it out there. I'm putting it out there in terms of helping people with leadership development, helping organizations build, build and develop leaders that have a real impact, that are values LED. And I'm also using it in terms of a personal development tool for people who are not necessarily looking at doing something in industry or anything like that. They just want to use it to empower their own personal lives. Um,

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I've never put anything out there this personal before. So this is the this is the challenge. This is the challenge for me now, and I'm going to continue to do that. I'm going to continue to put that out there, you know, offer programs, offer content, offer things that I believe will help, will help people become more of who their purpose to be and who they're created to be, and I'm doing that with corporations, with nonprofit organizations, with individuals alike and

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yeah, just want to be. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. And I, I've, I've counted a blessing in my life that we were introduced to one another deepened our relationship over time. I know that's going to going to continue, and I, I will happily share you with the rest of the world. Lamondre, so how do people get in touch with you? Absolutely? Well, you can follow me on any social media platform. My name is lamondre, l, a, m, O, N, D, R, E. Last name is pew, P, O, U, G, H, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the social media platforms, some of them like Instagram and x, it's la mandre underscore p, because I've been hacked before and get my can get my original stuff back, but you can also visit my website. It's lamondre pugh.com

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that's L, A, M, O, N, D, R, E, P, O, U, G, h.com,

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and you can check out my new podcast that's about to premiere on in April. Awesome. Yeah. It's called the live, big, live, full, live, authentic, Daily Affirmation podcast. You can check that out if you want to go to that website. It's simply, I will subscribe. I use an app that's very accessible for podcast management called eye catcher.

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Find you and I will subscribe. Please, do please. We'll do it and and that's what it is, man. So live authentic daily.com that's live authentic daily.com

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nice. And we can find you on LinkedIn, as we mentioned earlier, and me as well. So if you want to find me, it's Kirk Adams PhD on LinkedIn. My website is Dr Kirk adams.com so D, R k, i, r k, A, D, A, M, s.com,

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I know lamondre shares the sentiment that we will happily talk to anyone listening to this podcast about inclusion, leadership, personal development, bravery, resilience, whatever you uh, whatever has resonated with you our discussion today, we would happily dig into it more deeply with you. So please do reach out to lamondre and or myself, and thanks for listening to podcasts by Dr Kirk Adams,

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thank you for listening to podcasts by Dr Kirk Adams, we hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a [email protected]

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Kirk adams.com,

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together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change until next time. Keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.