Overcoming Disability
When Nicki Salfer of Learning Tree met Jacob Mecker he was illiterate, thanks to a lifelong struggle with Dyslexia. In this video, Salfer and Mecker talk about how together they overcame his disability. Truly inspiring!
Excerpt:
Nicki Salfer: Hi I’m Nicki Salfer. I’m the CEO of Learning Tree, and I am so excited today to be here with my friend Jacob. We have spent the last eight years on this amazing journey, and I want him to be able to share his story and our work together, and I hope through this process, this will give you as much hope, and as much great feelings as it gave me to have lived through this, to have helped teach Jacob, and to really have learnt all about Jacob’s life.
So you went through school, and you struggled with reading and writing, and then your mom sent you to a ton of different programs, which is really amazing, all of the different things she sent you to, and then you went to Hiram College.
So you’re going through school, and you’re going through these programs, and you’re going through college, and you’re frustrated. You can’t seem to get literate like your friends. What did you do to deal with your frustration?
Jacob Meckner: Well I turned to drugs and alcohol, and music, and just the party life, you know?
Nicki Salfer: Okay. So then all of the sudden, at thirty years old, you realize that that might not have been the way to go, and you do a lot of work, and you go through the twelve-step program.
Jacob Meckner: Yes.
Nicki Salfer: And you’ve been clean for a long time. So you’ve been working, you have a job, you’re successful in the company you’ve been working for, and you go to a counselor because you don’t want to work anymore. You’re not feeling like there’s meaning to life. Talk a little bit about what you told that counselor.
(For the rest of the interview, please watch our video)
