Episode #699 Disability Inclusion Starts With Asking — Jenna Udenberg
“We know better, so now we need to do better.”
Jenna Udenberg
Founder, Above & Beyond With You | Accessibility Educator & Advocate
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True disability inclusion begins when people can name what they need without apology, shame, or being treated as burdens.
Episode Summary
There is a difference between helping someone fit into the world as it exists and asking whether the world itself needs to change.
That distinction sits quietly underneath my conversation with Jenna Udenberg.
Jenna has used a manual wheelchair since childhood and has spent much of her life navigating spaces, expectations and systems that were not always designed with her in mind. Today, as founder of Above & Beyond With U, she works to increase accessibility and inclusion both physically and attitudinally.
What makes this conversation so compelling, though, is that Jenna doesn't reduce disability inclusion to ramps, policies or compliance. She brings it back to something much more human: communication.
What do you actually need?
Can you ask for it?
Can the other person hear that request without treating it as inconvenient, unusual or burdensome?
Jenna talks about learning to distinguish between asking for help with the symptom of a problem and understanding the deeper need underneath it. She also challenges the familiar tendency to call disabled people “inspiring” without asking whether their stories actually changed anything.
This is ultimately a conversation about disability inclusion, but it reaches much further. It is about courage, boundaries, relationships and what happens when we stop asking people to adapt endlessly to broken systems and start asking how we can build something better together.
Four Key Takeaways
Inclusion Begins With Understanding the Real Need
One of Jenna's most interesting observations is that asking for help is more complicated than simply saying, “Can you help me?” Sometimes we ask for help with the visible problem without identifying what we truly need underneath it. Real disability inclusion requires enough self-awareness to understand the root need, enough courage to communicate it and enough openness from others to respond without judgment.
Inspiration Should Lead Somewhere
Jenna has heard variations of “You're so inspiring” throughout her life. Her response has become increasingly interesting: What did I inspire you to do? For her, admiration alone isn't necessarily meaningful. A story becomes powerful when it causes someone to think differently, become curious, challenge an assumption or take action. That's a much higher standard for inspiration, and perhaps a more useful one.
Accessibility Is Bigger Than a Checklist
Jenna's work challenges the idea that accessibility ends once minimum requirements have been satisfied. Her vision is more human: a world where needs aren't automatically categorized as “special,” where communication is authentic and where people can participate in ordinary life even if how they participate looks different. Above & Beyond With U similarly describes its work as helping communities move beyond basic compliance toward participation, belonging and accessibility.
Joy Doesn't Require Perfect Circumstances
One of the quieter moments in the conversation arrives when Jenna separates joy from happiness. For her, joy isn't necessarily circumstantial. It can be hard fought, discovered in quieter moments and strengthened by the people surrounding us. She credits biological family, chosen family, medical family and leadership relationships as important parts of that support system.
Guest Bio
Jenna Udenberg is the founder of Above & Beyond With U, a Minnesota-based nonprofit focused on increasing accessibility and inclusion. She has used a manual wheelchair since age eight after being diagnosed with juvenile arthritis as a child and spent 19 years working as a music educator before moving more deeply into accessibility education, advocacy and community leadership.
Her perspective is shaped by more than professional advocacy. Jenna has spent decades experiencing the everyday realities of inaccessible environments, changing physical capacity, assumptions about disability and the constant work of communicating needs. Community leadership became a pivotal part of her journey after she was nominated for a local rehabilitation award in 2016, helping give her the confidence to keep saying yes to new opportunities.
That combination of lived experience, education and advocacy gives this conversation its depth.
BOOKS, PRODUCTS, RESOURCES & SPECIAL OFFERS
Above & Beyond With U
Jenna identifies Above & Beyond With U as the best place for listeners to learn more about her work. The organization provides accessibility education, training, consulting and advocacy while helping organizations and communities move beyond minimum compliance toward genuine participation and belonging.
Within My Spokes: A Tapestry of Pain, Growth & Freedom
Jenna's memoir, Within My Spokes: A Tapestry of Pain, Growth & Freedom, extends many of the themes behind this conversation through her lived experience of disability, growth, advocacy and freedom. Jenna specifically directs listeners to the book during the conversation, and it is also featured through Above & Beyond With U.
Audacious Insight
We often assume that being helpful means immediately doing something. Sometimes the more respectful and courageous response is asking a simple question first: “What would actually help?” ThisAudacious Insight explores how assumptions, even well-intended ones, can unintentionally remove another person's voice from the solution.
Personal Insights
This conversation reminded me that audacity isn’t always loud or visible. Sometimes it’s the courage to speak truth, set boundaries, and advocate for yourself and others when it would be easier to stay silent. Jenna’s story is a powerful reminder that greatness lives on the other side of honesty.
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#AudaciousLiving #DisabilityAdvocacy #AccessibilityMatters #InclusiveLeadership #Resilience #Joy #PurposeDriven #LiveAudaciously #PodcastEpisode
