We always love to highlight our clients and showcase what Hammersmith Support has been able to do for them. This month, we’re excited to introduce you to Danny Jordan and his website for his children’s book The Capables. Danny’s background is broad, and he drew on his experience to create something really special for differently abled kids by making inclusion and representation in books the new normal.
Tell Us a Little about You
“I am the creator and author of the inclusive children’s book series The Capables. I have not always been a children’s book author, that is something that is more of a recent development in my life. Prior to writing the first book in The Capables series, I worked exclusively as a non-scripted reality TV producer. I’ve been fortunate to work on such shows as Extreme Makeover: Home Addition, Biggest Loser, Storage Wars—the list is long!”
Talk to Us about Your “Why” and What Inspired You to Write The Capables Book.
“My focus in terms of storytelling really shifted pretty dramatically back in 2018 when my wife and I found out that our daughter would be born with an upper limb difference. For me, as a storyteller, I just wanted to do whatever I could to contribute to a world that is more inclusive, empowering and educated when it comes to disability. And that’s when the idea for The Capables hit me. I’ve been working on it nonstop, really, since June of 2018.”
What’s Next On Your Goal List?
“My goals list … If you saw my desk here, you would see that I have note cards that have lots of goals on them. I’m a very goal oriented person as it pertains to The Capables. Specifically, my goal is to write and print as many books as we possibly can. I think there are so many people who historically have not seen themselves represented on the pages of a children’s book, and they have never seen themselves represented as the hero in the story.
Because of this, I am committed to writing, illustrating, and printing as many books as we possibly can. That’s why we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund our second book in the series, which will feature a non visible disability, dyslexia. Outside of The Capables, my goals are to travel the world. I love traveling, to tell dynamic stories, to challenge norms. Those are huge goals of mine and to use my voice to open up conversation and to hopefully move the needle in terms of conversations around inclusivity and accurate, authentic representation in the media.”
What Advice Do You Have for Others?
“My advice for others who have a big dream is know that it’s not always going to be easy. Know that there are going to be challenges along the way, but also know that you are incredibly capable. Anybody who did something for the first time, they were the first person to do it—and nobody else in the world knew how to do it. But they figured it out, and they didn’t necessarily figure it out on their first try.
Keep working, keep moving forward, and keep building confidence in yourself. And through that, I think oftentimes you find a new vision of what it is that you want to do and it’s so much more beautiful and it’s so much more powerful maybe, than what you originally dreamed. You have to be flexible when you have big dreams, when you have big goals, it’s important to be malleable in the sense that when you first have the idea, when you first have the dream, you don’t have all the experience of going through making that a reality to work from. It’s just an idea, right? So as you start to work on it, it becomes more fine tuned.
I believe ideas choose us. This idea chose you. This dream? It chose you. So I think one of the best things we can do to honor that is to allow it to become and to grow and to evolve into what it naturally, organically wants to become in the world and that can be really challenging. So I would encourage anybody out there who has a dream, who has a goal, to be patient, to work hard, to be flexible. And wherever you can, include other people in on the conversation—trusted colleagues, trusted friends, family members—whatever it might be, a lot of times we get so married to what we feel is right for a situation that we may miss something that could add so much to what we’re creating to make it bigger and more impactful for more people, which I think is what we dreamers want, we want to impact our capable.
You can do this. You’ve got it.”
Hammersmith Support Is Here to Help Your Dream Too
We were honored to build the website for The Capables! And we’re here to support your business too. Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation and let’s talk through your thoughts and see how we can help get your dream out into the world.