We’re looking forward to introducing you to Brianna Paauwe. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Brianna, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What is a normal day like for you right now?
Right now, I am in my “off season” for work travel- so a normal day for me starts with snuggling my dog before hopping out of bed to start my morning routine before work. I get myself ready for the day by freshening up, making a cup of protein coffee, and letting Rambo run around outside before getting my desk ready. I am blessed to be able to work from home when I am not on the road, so I get my desk all set up with everything I need to be successful (including a fresh bottle of water and snacks for the day). I work from my computer- tackling a range of tasks for a few hours before taking a lunch/workout break. Depending on my schedule and meetings, I will squeeze my workout and lunch in midday to help keep my energy going until the afternoon. Once I am done with work, I pick up my desk and take a few moments of Bri Time outside in nature before tackling home things. By now, it’s time to cook or prep dinner. After we eat, we usually finish some personal development tasks to make sure we are still moving the needle forward on our goals, ending the day with a little quality time with my partner, Jake, and reading 10 pages before bed.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Brianna Grace, and I live in NC with my dog Rambo and partner, Jake. In 2011, I made the poor choice of getting behind the wheel after drinking and ended up wrecking my car, leaving myself with a T10 spinal cord injury. I have been a full-time wheelchair user ever since. It took me a few years to figure out my new purpose in life after my accident, but I feel like I have really found the path that was meant for me. Now I work as a Product Application Specialist for AMF Bruns America- a company that makes wheelchair securements for vehicles, I am the Executive Director of a nonprofit called Wheel With Me Foundation that supports the independence of wheelchair users, and I am also an ambassador for a medical company. I travel almost full-time for work and stay extremely busy with my side hustles! I am currently working on a plan to expand my personal brand in 2026, growing my platform to offer different growth courses and personal development products to help others with their growth and independence journeys. These are things that pre-accident Bri would have never thought she could achieve. I am blessed to live a life I never thought I could, and I have my disability to thank for that.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I used to believe that I was limited by my upbringing and financial barriers. I was raised by a hard-working single mother who was always struggling with finances. She did the best she could, but the world around her wasn’t set up for a mom like her to be successful on her own. I would always assume that because we struggled growing up, I was destined to struggle forever. I believed I had no shot at “leveling up” or having more financial security than as a kid and that I was stuck in our economic status forever. Then you add in being an adult with a disability living on SSDI, and the idea of financial freedom seems damn near impossible. After my accident, I was told I would never work full-time again, be able to have more than $2,000 in my bank account at a time, and that marriage was off the table if I didn’t want to lose my government assistance. It wasn’t until I met others in the disability community who were working on personal and professional development that I learned that nothing is set in stone and that we have a lot more control over our destiny than society wants us to believe. I now know that with determination and hard work, anything is possible. I work full-time for an amazing company, have two side jobs to help build that financial security I am looking for, and I have started the process of getting off government assistance, so I am able live without limitations and guidelines.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
Two wounds that have defined my life would be the wounds after losing a loved one and an actual skin infection that landed me in the hospital for a month in 2025.
Death is a hard thing to overcome, and it never gets easier. I have lived a life where I have lost more friends and family than I can count to a wide range of causes. Health issues, old age, substance abuse, drinking and driving, and suicide, just to name a few. The hardest one, though, was losing my Nana in 2023. It was very unexpected, and like most people, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I was flying home from a work trip when she passed. I landed in Charlotte to find my best friend waiting for me in the airport parking lot with heartbreaking news and a fresh suitcase packed to head home to my family. I swapped my work duffle for the new duffle and went straight back into the airport. Losing my Nana left a hole in my soul that I’m still not sure will ever fully heal. My nana was one of my best friends, and we had an extremely special bond. Losing that isn’t easy. It took a lot of time and a lot of “busy work” to be able to move forward from that.
The second wound was an actual, factual skin infection that landed me in the hospital for over 25 days in January 2025 and left me with a hockey-puck-sized hole in my buttocks. This was devastating to me. I am an extremely busy human, disabled or not, and I had to make A LOT of life adjustments to be able to heal that wound- both physically and mentally. I had to stay off my butt for hours at a time, be mindful about what I was eating and how I was moving my body. I had to learn how to watch for other skin issues and how to care for my body with the right bandages and medications. I had to keep my mind strong and not let the negative self-talk run rampant in making me feel worse than I already was. Luckily, this happened before I needed to travel heavily for work, but there were still a couple of work-related trips that I had to take while healing. This meant I had to schedule time out of my wheelchair to make sure the healing process didn’t backslide. After five months of adjusted habits and routines, I was finally fully healed and able to slowly get back into my old-norm again.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes. I own every piece of my story, both good and bad. When people ask about my injury or accident, I never shy away from taking full responsibility for my mistakes and what came from them. As I create content for social media, I try to share the good things in my life, along with the hard struggles. Life isn’t always polished and perfect. There are times when life is going to get hard, when we fail, when we backslide. I have found that sharing my struggles online is what people relate to the most. When I shared posts about my wound and my healing journey this past year, I had people reaching out to tell me that they wished more individuals in the disability community would talk about that stuff more often. If we don’t talk about it, how can we help others from making the same mistakes that we made? People don’t see enough of the challenges and struggles with the “public versions” of people, and that creates unrealistic expectations, not just for people with disabilities, but for everyone online. I love helping people, and the only way to do that is by addressing the hard stuff as well.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
When I am gone, I hope people talk about my resilience and joy for life. I have had a lot of crazy things happen in my 35 years. I have been thrown a lot of hurdles and challenges, and for the most part, I attacked them all with a smile on my face. I wasn’t always confident or full of self-love. But I was always ready to persevere. There was a moment when I was in the hospital in 2011 after my accident, when a close friend told me they didn’t know how I was doing it. They couldn’t even comprehend the thought of living with a SCI. But even in the midst of this new injury and relearning how to live, giving up was never an option. Was I living to my fullest potential? definitely not. But I also wasn’t stopping. I did my best to find little ways to keep moving myself forward. First, it was just getting out of the house, then it moved to volunteering, which grew into going back to school, followed by me needing to move out close to campus and going back to work, finally ending with me moving away and launching myself into the unknown of my new home in North Carolina. I have always tried to accept life as it is, and find ways to just make whatever hand I am dealt work for me and my goals.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wheelwithmefoundation.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bribabe16/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianna-paauwe-5b1251b6/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bribabe16
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@brigrace90
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/c/Brigrace90
