A Life Reimagined with Josh Basile

What if a life-altering accident didn’t just change your world but also transformed it into a beacon of hope for others? Join us as we welcome Josh Basile, Esq., a C4-5 quadriplegic and a tireless advocate for individuals with spinal cord injuries, who shares his incredible journey from a paralyzing accident to becoming a pioneering voice in disability law. With the unwavering support of a dedicated mentor and a resilient community, Josh’s early challenges evolved into a life rich with purpose and joy, demonstrating the boundless potential of the human spirit.

This episode shines a light on the critical role of early intervention and mentoring programs that offer emotional and technological support, fostering independence and resilience. Through Josh's story, we champion the continuous potential for growth and contribution, regardless of circumstances, and honor those who relentlessly work towards creating inclusive communities.

Learn more about SPINALpedia and Determined2Heal at the links below:
https://www.determined2heal.org/
https://spinalpedia.com/
https://www.instagram.com/spinalpedia/
https://www.facebook.com/SPINALpedia/

For more information, transcriptions and behind-the-scene photos, visit https://craighospital.org/unstoppable

Craig Hospital is a nationally recognized neurorehabilitation hospital and research center specialized in the care of individuals who have sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) and/or a brain injury (BI). Located in Denver, Colorado, Craig Hospital is an independent, not-for-profit, 93-bed national center of excellence that has treated thousands of people with SCI and BI since 1956. Learn more: https://craighospital.org

Transcript

Jandel Allen-Davis 0:02

Welcome to Unstoppable at Craig, where we pull back the curtain on what makes healthy workplace cultures click and what happens when people are empowered to expand the boundaries of what is possible. We'll explore the perspectives of employees and leaders who have carte blanche to speak their truths, tell their stories and unlock uncommon ways of approaching challenges. I'm Dr Jandell Allen-Davis, ceo and President of Craig Hospital, a world-renowned rehabilitation hospital that exclusively specializes in the neurorehabilitation and research of patients with spinal cord and brain injury. Join me as we learn from people who love what they do and what happens when fear doesn't stifle innovation doesn't stifle innovation.

Jandel Allen-Davis 0:52

I remember when I first met this amazing guy I get to talk with today at Craig Hospital. It was before the pandemic, I think, and it was on the fourth floor gym, which means nothing to any of you except that's a physical therapy gym. It was in the evening and one of the traditions and conventions that's part of our really expansive peer mentoring program is that there is a dinner once a month that's hosted by any one of a number of generous either organizations or individuals, and Josh was there. But what I was struck by immediately as we were talking and I said I need to get to know you better just because of the work you were doing in advocacy for our folks with one of the toughest, I think, agendas in America talk. But it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Josh Basile and have the opportunity to just get to know you so welcome.

Josh Basile 1:52

It's great to be here today and thank you for having me on the podcast Well it is super cool to do this.

Jandel Allen-Davis 1:57

You know, we talked to, and I've had the just the privilege and opportunity to talk to, a lot of folks in different sectors. This podcast gives us the opportunity to talk about building great cultures and we're going to have, as I think about it, the chance to talk about building great cultures at a policy stage, at a national, at a global stage, in a very different way, and, heaven knows, there's tons of work to do in this space. So I thought just to contextualize things, since we're just chatting and no one can see us, maybe we'd start by having you, josh, just tell your story. Well, again.

Josh Basile 2:31

It's great to be here, and my journey into the spinal cord injury world started as a teenager. It was almost 20 years ago. I was on a summer vacation, finished my freshman year of college and went to the beach with my family and friends, something I look forward to every year. And while in the water waist-high water I turned my back to the ocean and a wave just picked me up, threw me over my boogie board and I landed headfirst against the ocean floor. And I remember just hearing a loud crack, ocean floor. And I remember just hearing a loud crack.

Josh Basile 3:05

And when I became paralyzed, I was face down in the water, unable to move my arms, my legs, unable to scream for help. And I just remember floating in the water, just kind of trying to be as calm as I could, to not panic, and just hoping my friends would see me. I floated there for a while. I'm happy to report they did, they did, they found me and that was the start to a new life. I was medevaced off the beach to a hospital system in a critical unit and spent the next four weeks in the trauma unit with a ventilator on my neck, unable to breathe on my own, unable to speak words because of the ventilator, and I could only communicate with my family by blinking once for yes and twice for no. Then I went to spend another two months in an inpatient hospital and I was sent home and off to a new life. That was, yeah, 20 years ago. It's kind of crazy to think about that.

Jandel Allen-Davis 4:04

It's interesting you use the phrase off to a new life. It certainly was a new life. That was, yeah, 20 years ago. It's kind of crazy to think about that. It's interesting you use the phrase off to a new life, did it? It certainly was a new and different life. You say that with a smile, which is amazing. I could imagine, though, that it wasn't with smiles at the beginning, and what was that transition like?

Josh Basile 4:17

if you don't mind, sharing, yeah, there weren't many smiles in the beginning days, but I did find my first smile thanks to community thanks to mentors.

Josh Basile 4:28

I remember I was in my inpatient room and this guy, robbie Beckman, who's a quadriplegic from the Maryland area, was injured like a year before me and he ends up racing in the room in his power wheelchair and tries to almost attacking my nurse playfully and I was just like what is going on? This is like the strangest scene ever. I have no idea who this person is. And he starts kind of yelling at her like smiling, laughing, and I was just like I have no idea what's going on. And he looks at me and he's like son, you got to turn that frown upside down and it's the first time I smiled.

Josh Basile 5:08

I was like I didn't know you could be playful with a spinal cord injury. I didn't know you could have fun, you could joke. Since then it's been a I've just had countless mentors come into my life to show me what was possible and that life could go on in beautiful ways. And I know, just laying in the hospital bed during the early days I would just be on my back, staring at the ceiling, counting every little imperfection in the ceiling and memorizing it. Because it was just. Those were my days and I would be dreaming of like what could my future still hold, and I didn't know, but as time went on it ended up becoming a pretty beautiful future.

Jandel Allen-Davis 5:50

Yeah, and I don't even want to fast forward through all the chapters, but I will say fast forward to today. You clearly figured it all out. What was that story?

Josh Basile 6:00

like being able to follow in others' wheel tracks you know, being a quadriplegic.

Josh Basile 6:11

It's going from being on two feet, running everywhere and living life with pure independence. I had to hit a big reset button on life and you know, I did things a million different ways before my injury. Now I do it one million new ways, one million different ways. And having to figure that out it could either be done by trial and error or it could be done by learning from others, learning from community members, and you know, truly, the power of mentoring changed my world, being able to have people come into my life.

Josh Basile 6:47

When I was still in the hospital I got to meet Tim Strachan, who was a quadriplegic from Maryland who, 10 years earlier than me, was at the same beach a few doors down, dove headfirst into the water and hit a sandbar and shattered his neck, and he actually had a full ride to play for Joe Paterno at Penn State.

Josh Basile 7:09

He was the number one prospect college football player quarterback and he came home, went to community college, went to undergrad, then went to the law school. He passed the bar, fell in love, got married and had kids. And you know what, when I heard that story early on, it just said Josh, if Tim can do it, you can do it too. So it set me on a new path and a new mission. You know what I can live a meaningful life and make an impact. And as I went through school and really and really, in those early days of my injury when I did regain my voice, I found the power of what your voice and your words can do to influence the world around you. So becoming a communication major myself, then graduating Magna cum laude from law school, I did it without ever flipping a page with my fingers.

Jandel Allen-Davis 8:07

There's a ton of tangents in there. You're pointing out the importance of mentoring. Just to say that there is big life, like the person who came in, who's married and has kids, went to law school. The man who came in and joked with the nurse and said turn that frown upside down and I love that your very first smile. I know it's had a bigger impact than just you saying that mentoring is important in words. You know, when I think about Spinalpedia, I'd love for you to spend some time talking about that. And then, what was the genesis? What inspired you to create this incredible library of all sorts of videos that are easily accessible?

Josh Basile 8:45

Well, with hitting that big reset button and entering this new world of paralysis. It's just it's crazy to think about every little piece of your day, every little activity of daily living. You have to figure out how to do it again. And the way that I figured out how to do it a lot because of my paralysis and high level injuries I would have to rely a lot on technology and a lot on caregivers. So I became very dependent on technology or adaptive devices or family friends, caregivers to tackle life. But I learned very quickly that through all the technology and people in my life I became independent because as long as I could have the say, physically I was paralyzed, but mentally I was still there, I was still Josh and focusing on what I could control that perspective.

Josh Basile 9:46

It really transformed my ability to kind of tackle my day with purpose. But it really took mentors to give me the ability how to figure things out so that I didn't have to do it five or 10 different ways and fail. I could be like, all right, they did it. Well, that way, I'm going to try it. Did that work for me? It did. I'm going to do it that way, or you know what it didn't, but I'm work for me. It did, I'm gonna do it that way, or you know what it?

Josh Basile 10:09

didn't, but I'm gonna tweak it and I'm gonna figure out how to how to do it in my own way or within my own environment.

Josh Basile 10:14

But so much of that mentoring that I found it just like every single time that I had someone new come into my life, it just it rocked my world. It got me in a different direction, it got me on a straighter path to figuring this all out. And it's crazy, but after 10 months I compiled it felt like volumes of information that I wish I could have slowly rolled out to myself right after my injury. So I didn't have to make the big mistakes. I didn't have to. I didn't have to struggle through different parts of of the mental game of an injury or or how to gain access to vocational supports or government programs. And because the quicker you can get in the in the right direction on a different path with a with a high level spinal cord injury or with any really spinal cord injury, it's a whole new world of possibilities and I know each and every time I met those special people it's just like I kept on saying I wish I met you sooner.

Josh Basile 11:21

But I would always come to each new encounter with a sense of gratitude. First of all because it's just like you know. You don't know what you don't know and if people are willing to give and to help you and if you're willing to let them in. That's sometimes the hardest part of paralysis in the early days. You choose to believe like this is going to be so temporary, I'm going to beat this, and it's good to have that mentality. It's good to have hope. Any dose of hope is good in life and in general. I'm not saying to give up that hope early on. What I'm saying is, like so often, there's people within the spinal cord community that I end up reaching out to and mentoring I'll go a little bit more into that but like they're not ready to have a mentor, there's people within the spinal cord community that I end up reaching out to and mentoring I'll go a little bit more into that but they're not ready to have a mentor. They're still coping, they're still in the grief stage or they're just not ready for that.

Josh Basile 12:23

But luckily I had certain mentors in my life to show me the value of it. Luckily I had certain mentors in my life to show me the value of it. And the next thing I knew, the more and more people I let into my life, it set me off in a really, really beautiful journey. And so about 10 months after my injury, I had friends and family come to me and said Josh, what do you want to do with your next chapter? And we decided we wanted to start a foundation. So we started the Determined to Heal Foundation to help simplify the transition into life with paralysis for newly injured families. And at first I kind of just shared my story and almost writing like a book, 130 pages of different topics that we ended up putting on the internet. But I quickly learned that my unique level of paralysis was very specific to me. One level above my injury, I would likely be on a ventilator.

Advocating for Disability Law Changes

Josh Basile 13:20

One level below, I'd start to have a tricep one level of that uh, fingers, um and level, like it's just every level of the spinal cord injury branches out into a whole new world. So then I started saying, all right, what can we do to bring mentors to people across the world? And that's when Spinalpedia was born. It's a video mentoring platform where we take videos from the internet and break them down, all by functionality, so that you put your exact movement in and the next you know, you have somebody within the process community to show you different activities of daily living, different parts of life you name it. And now, in 2024, since 2007, we are now over 10,000 community members and over 33,000 videos broken down by functionality, and it's just one of those things. It started off as my baby and it's now a teenager and it's grown up in a beautiful way and I'm very, very proud of what it's become.

Jandel Allen-Davis 14:28

It certainly takes a village or entourage, however you want to put it. I want to switch gears just a bit, because you did go to law school Holy moly, I love it and never flipped a page, which is scary. But there you go in terms of the ability to do what you got done through any one of a number of both technologies and, as you said, people to help. But you've, I think, committed your life to a particularly important aspect of law, and it has to do with disability law, which is what I remember us talking about in that gym that day, which was one of the things that I said. Oh, because I'd done government relations at Kaiser Permanente before coming to Craig, and obviously we have a role that we play in local and national policy. But I wanted to give you a just just talk about how that whole journey started and then we can get into some specifics.

Josh Basile 15:18

You know, when I learned that Tim Strachan became an attorney, it kind of taught me that you know the power of your voice, the power of advocacy. You can really change the world with your words, and if you have a unique set of skills, more so than others, you really can gain a superpower of sorts to change the world around you. So I started getting as much education and confidence as I possibly could around advocacy and I turned it almost into a sport, into a game. The more I practiced at it, the more I played at it, the more I put myself into the game, the better I got, and learning everything I could around me also helped. Being able to live in the Washington DC area contributed to allowing me to be, you know, rolled down the streets of Capitol Hill. I learned that you know. When I wheeled down the streets in DC area contributed to allowing me to be, you know, roll down the streets of Capitol Hill. I learned that, you know, when I wheel down the streets in DC I get to turn some heads, but if I wheel down the street with you know, two or three or five people in chairs a lot more people Turn a lot of heads yeah

Josh Basile 16:23

you create a small army and people start listening, People start healing and they realize that this is a real story, this is real life, this is real impact and letting them be a part of your journey and that consistency within advocacy I learned it's. Change does not happen fast anywhere in the world, especially within the US political system, but a consistent, steady beat, a persistent beat of letting the world know what needs to change, why it needs to change, and continuing to working with the powers to be to make it happen. It's just, it's amazing what happens when you keep beating that drum over time. There's so many things that need fixing.

Josh Basile 17:15

Unfortunately, so many people within spinal cord injury rely on Medicaid, and when Medicaid was first formed in the 1970s, it was made to help get poor people off the ground and to get them back up and to give them a safety net of sort in place so that they just didn't crumble. They had something to support them and they quickly joined in the elderly, children and persons with disabilities. But they left that component that you had to be poor, and that's been one of the hardest points of having a high-level injury is the only place you really can turn for long-term care, which is that nursing care, that attending care in the community, is through Medicaid, and people with disabilities, especially with spinal cord injuries at high levels, will always choose to survive before they thrive. Survival is attached to Medicaid if you want to be in the community and out of an institution like a nursing home. So basically, people with disabilities, especially spinal cord injuries, were not going back to work. And in the 1990s they realized that people weren't going back to work because if they made any money they'd lose their caregiving.

Josh Basile 18:39

The federal government, Congress, decided to pass two pieces of legislation the 1997 Balanced Budget Act and the 1999 Ticket to Work, Work Incentive Improvement Act and both of these legislative authorities granted states to create what's known as Medicaid buying programs for workers with disabilities and allowed states to design people have higher income, higher asset limits, be able to work to a certain point and not be kicked out of their Medicaid benefits. And this was a beautiful turning point. In the beginning days they made very conservative rules around these programs and as time went on, state by state by state, we're finding that a lot of these rules are being relaxed to allow people to make more money, to save more money, to be able to get married without a penalty to be able to work past the age of 65. So right now that's one of my biggest advocacy pieces in my life is transforming Medicaid buying programs across the country 46 out of 50 states have Medicaid-buying programs.

Jandel Allen-Davis 19:49

Oh, that's fabulous.

Josh Basile 19:50

So Florida, alabama, louisiana and Tennessee are currently the only states that do not have it, and the District of Columbia, but within Maryland, after five years of advocacy I started with Governor Hogan, who's a former governor I was actually able to convince with Governor Hogan, who's a former governor, I was actually able to convince him and his administration to remove the income limits and to allow once somebody's in the program to save for the future based on the amount of money they make in a year. So as of January 1, 2024, this year, maryland workers with disabilities in the Medicaid Buy-In Program are able to work without any barriers on income, which is huge.

Jandel Allen-Davis 20:30

That's amazing, you know, it's almost. I guess I'm going to try not to get on a soapbox, but it's unbelievable to think about what a huge inequity that is. I can save for the future as much as I want and continue to work as a person not living with a disability, I mean it just so marginalizes and so calls out difference where there shouldn't be. So what you're doing, you and a throng of others rolling to the capitals all over this country, is welcome, and you know, I think there's also an all boats rise with the tide playing out here too, because the same thing happens for able-bodied, poor people who are trapped in poverty because of some real arcane regulations and rules that need to change.

Josh Basile 21:17

So thank you, and the only way they're going to change is to is to speak up. Let your voices be heard, let your wheels be heard. Just you, your wheels, be heard. You got to be heard. The only way to really change the world is to immerse yourself within it and to let the world around you know that you have value, that you have purpose and that your future is up to you.

Josh Basile 21:42

I learned early on in my injury that nobody's going to fight harder for me than I'm going to fight for myself. And when I learned that I my injury, that nobody's going to fight harder for me than I'm going to fight for myself. And when I learned that I became an advocate for life and I need to be able to bring together other beautiful people to fight alongside me so that we can amplify our voices and stories and to show that systematic problems need to be fixed, because it's just not one person falling through the cracks, it's many.

Jandel Allen-Davis 22:10

What are some of the other big cultural issues that do need to change through yours and others' leadership? And not just those who are wheelchair users or who are spinal cord or brain injury or any other disability, but those of us who do use these two things to walk around on and can jump out of bed. What's some of the big things we have to struggle with?

Josh Basile 22:36

Yeah. So the patience and persistence, it's key. Like you can't win every day within the advocacy game, it just doesn't work like that. Small incremental wins and many losses together both of those together is forward moving. It's like even this year, through the Maryland legislature, I brought forward a bill so that people age 65 and above in Maryland could be able to work without losing all their Medicaid, which currently you turn 65, it's time to retire, which is not fair. There's a marriage penalty, so if I were to get married, my premium per month would go from $50 to over $500, $700 a month, which disincentivizes marriage which I would love to marry, the love of my life my fiance and the Department of Health in my state was able to kill the bill, but we were able to get a survey put forward so that over the next year they could study it.

Josh Basile 23:42

We got the media behind us and I full heartedly believe in 2025, we will get the bill passed. We didn't get it done this year, but we were allowed enough to get the powers to be to recognize that they needed to do something, to get the powers to be to recognize that they needed to do something. There's a big issue right now with access to care and good care and making sure that those that are attendants and nurses want to enter this field and get paid a fair wage, and that's a struggle. I see quadriplegics like myself and my level of injury getting two to three hours in the morning and two to three hours in the evening. That's tough being able to have that number of hours for care.

Josh Basile 24:24

When you're paralyzed below the shoulders, it's almost torturous to not have the supports needed to be able to tackle your day and live your best life. There's so many things that we need to do within transportation to be able to tackle your day and live your best life Like there's so many things that we need to do within transportation to be able to give access to more people to the world around them, and you know we live in a world right now where the Internet is. You know most people now realize that they have to make their physical storefront accessible to people that are going to be customers, but we now live in this huge digital world where our websites need to be accessible. The different products and the way that we communicate with the world online needs to be accessible, and I've been extremely passionate about that.

Jandel Allen-Davis 25:13

There's no shortage of work for us to do. I mean the very and it's all. As I look at it, it just it's. I gotta tell you it's angering and I'm going to try not to get emotional, but you know, when you're talking about being able to marry, to marry, you know one of the things that we hold so at least politicians do sacrosanct and wonderful being able to get around where public transportation actually works, let alone private, and is affordable. Employment, which you know lessening, to use a phrase, the burden of government in general, just to have full access to employment.

Jandel Allen-Davis 25:49

And, in particular, one of the things I don't know, that I've said this to you but your story certainly once again reinforces, is that the people many, most, in fact I dare say all people living with spinal cord injuries, absent congenital conditions, woke up with one reality and went to bed with a very different one. It's not as if they left everything that they are and were and their potential on that ocean floor or on that, you know, the side of that road in a car accident, or at the bottom of that building from a fall, or those stairs from a fall, and yet we throw and we waste so much realized, actualized and potential this way, home health, and then accessibility through as we become a more digital world. Those are just five of a host of things that will keep a ton of us busy. It's one of the things just a little sharing is, I've thought, why did the heavens put an OBGYN in the place of service at a national neurorehabilitation hospital? And I knew what it was. It was to use my voice on behalf of the vulnerable, and I call myself a warrior for the vulnerable. So together we're stronger.

Jandel Allen-Davis 27:02

I rarely say fatigue or tired because there's lots of work left to do. But what would you, from your 38 year vistas, say to we old folks, because and I think it's important to get that and by old folks, old leaders, old people who are going to be in the fight till the fight ends? I say that because maybe there'll be a day that old Josh will need to hear that from young Josh. So what would you say to those of us who you know these fights get all this many years of doing this and at my age given therefore, you know, know, when I went into medicine, what it looked like, let alone the very few leaders of color and certainly disabled leaders that are out there who are the sort of the, the pioneers in some ways I would just say the importance of of purpose, the importance of knowing that when you get to wake up, you choose what you want to do next.

Navigating New Chapters With Disability Advocate

Josh Basile 28:02

So if you're tired of beating the same drum over and over again, there's so much more, there's so many new drum beats that you can create in different directions in life to truly create meaningful change and to have that influence around you. Like there's not enough hours in the day for me to do what I want to do now, but I know if I needed to go in a different direction, I could go in instantly and do something new and still be able to make big impact in that area. And it kind of makes me excited to know. You know, like my spinal cord injury, you know it immediately had me at a reset button, but it also started a new chapter.

Josh Basile 28:51

And you know, after you know, graduating from law school it was a new chapter. You know, after you know, graduating from law school, it was a new chapter. After falling in love and finding the love of my life, katie started a new chapter. I got to immediately become a father to her beautiful three-year-old daughter and the next thing you know, katie underwent in vitro fertilization and I became a dad from the beginning, and that was a new chapter. It's just. Each and every chapter of our lives can begin something new, but it's up to you to be that star, that main character in it, and what you do next. So, whatever if you're 38, or if you're 70, the truth is that each and every chapter that comes next, you are the actor in it to decide what happens next. With that next word, the next sentence, that next page, we are the narrator of our journey.

Jandel Allen-Davis 29:55

This hour, there's been just so many gems that you've dropped, not just in service to and in support of persons living with spinal cord injury, but those of us who aren't. And one thing I suspect that, had that wave not changed, your trajectory would have been part of your future, would have been this desire, this drive, this need, this responsibility to mentor, and I know that you're like you said there's always another cool thing you're doing and you are doing something interesting in the mentoring space.

Josh Basile 30:27

We're creating a national peer mentoring program to get to families as early on as possible within the critical unit, within the inpatient setting, and making sure that you know just if the person that's injured needs somebody, we're there for them the second that they're ready. Oftentimes you need to mentor the family members as quickly as possible to get them so that they're ready to make that transition from hospital to home, which is very scary. I remember coming home from the inpatient hospital and I was there within the hospital systems for almost two and a half three months and when I came home and they wheeled me into my garage I saw an old pair of cleats and a tennis racket and that's when it hit me. The life was going to be different from that moment on. I really did not get it as much when I was still in the hospital. But creating an international peer mentoring program, we're going to try to get to families early on, to every hospital, and also to get technology to families early on to every hospital and to get also to get technology. What? What if we could get a piece of technology into someone's mouth immediately after their injury, to actually give them independence back and to give them the ability to control their environment, to communicate with the world around them, to be able to, to not just be in that hospital bed staring up at the ceiling, blinking once for yes and twice for no? What if, from day one, the first week, we can give people the ability to not go down a road of depression, which every single person with a spinal cord injury gets a dose of depression Like. It's hard not to. It's the reality of the day. But how can we give them the tools they need, the mentors they need to have a better fighting chance, to live their best life and to not be alone? That's something I would love to try my hardest to give to the world and something that, at least in this chapter, I'm going to be fighting for. You know there's just so many things that we're all doing that are contributing, and Craig Hospital.

Josh Basile 32:44

You know I came out there because I brought five families to go adaptive skiing from around the country and we came to the Denver area and it's just like it was a no brainer. I had to get out to Craig. We've heard so much of the magic that happens and the families that the lives that you've changed, and being within your walls it made so much sense. It was such an incredible place for healing to occur and for people to come together and learn and I put on a support group when I was there and there was like 60 families, like it was just. It was so beautiful to have a touchpoint early on in those families' journey and to hopefully say like I had a part in getting them in a new direction. Craig helped have a part in getting them in a new direction. Craig helped have a part in getting them in a new direction. So it's just coming together, being the matchmakers and actually doing something together. It's like I'm excited for us to do a lot together.

Jandel Allen-Davis 33:49

Well, I think that our futures are bright in that respect and, as we end, I just wanted to say to you that, as a person who's done this journey through different you know sort of a different lens, a different set of, I'd say, absolute challenges from a social, a political and economic perspective, despite, or maybe because of my comment about fatigue that just hits you every now and again, keep going, because I was 38 at one point in my life and at this ripe and still ripening age of 66, I still feel like there's tons more to do.

Jandel Allen-Davis 34:29

So then, when we hit, when you hit 66, you'll listen to me saying this to you because I'll be a lot older and I hope I'm still saying things to you to say keep going. We got lots more rolling to do. Josh, I want to thank you. This has been just an honor, a privilege and you know it's funny how life works meeting you in a gym on the fourth floor at Craig and a room full of families who come together monthly to share a meal and catch up with friends and work with both our formal and less formal peer mentors who are there. Who would have ever thought there'd come a day that we'd be hanging out in Washington DC, your home, where you're doing fabulous work, and having a chance just to share some thoughts, and thank you for being here with us today.

Josh Basile 35:11

It was a pleasure to be here and you know I'm a big believer that beautiful people gravitate towards each other, so we're doing good in the world and that good attracts each other.

Championing Disability Rights and Inclusion

Jandel Allen-Davis 35:27

Wow, what an honor and privilege it was to spend an hour with Josh Basile, an amazing disability rights advocate, and I loved the line that he said about being the hero in your own story and didn't say it in a way that look at me being the hero in my own story, but recognizing his personal power and agency to take what he called every chapter and actually leverage the opportunity for new challenges and fun. And he's managed to do that beautifully, while never, interestingly, giving up the possibility of hope for a cure, which is one of the components of something that we haven't talked about on this podcast, namely the Craig recipe, and that is what we think is that recipe that makes Craig Hospital so special. What he has learned over time in terms of the implications of each level of spinal injury, opening a new world that he's had to navigate transportation, and does so beautifully. Employment he's had to stitch together and has a wonderful caregiver. But the home health situation that is quite a challenge for those living with spinal cord and brain injuries or any other kind of disability. And certainly how he leverages the accessibility that already lives in technology and will only continue to flourish over time because of the genius of so many people working in this space. And then, if there's something that just really frosts me and I will say it that way are the ways that some of our public programs work to keep people locked into certain levels of income and also then make some things as basic and as part of life, as marriage literally and pardon the pun inaccessible to parts of the population or something that we really do need to address at some point.

Jandel Allen-Davis 37:30

But what I'd say about Josh, and in this wonderful interview that just was the highlight of it for me, is that his eternal optimism in the face of all sorts of challenges.

Jandel Allen-Davis 37:42

He is a beautiful, wonderful young man and man. Are we both blessed as a world and a country to have someone who's done the kind of work, alongside all other sorts of heroes in their own story to remove barriers, to break through barriers and to create new possibilities for people living with disabilities? Interestingly, when I think about what we do at Craig, it's a perfect sort of bow on this wonderful interview that we had, or opportunity for a discussion, and that is because that's what we do at Craig and that's what this wonderful culture that is buttressed by a ton of courage, a ton of optimism and a lot of systemic sorts of structures that we've built to absolutely fuel the ways that we break through barriers to create opportunities for independence, at the same time recognizing that the work is never done. So thank you again for joining us at Unstoppable at Craig, and I look forward to the next conversation we'll have as we continue to explore what makes for great cultures and, more importantly, who are the people who are part of building those great cultures.