Why Falling Helps Us Rise

when i told my wife that i’d been

invited here today to talk about

creativity within crisis she literally

stopped what she was doing and what

really why you i tried to explain

and she came back with i get it it just

seems like you’re always in crisis

um so that’s a short version of my ted

talk and i did the longer version

uh the playwrights novelist somerset

moore once said

it’s very difficult to know people for

men and women are not only themselves

they’re also the region in which they

are born

the city apartment or farm in which they

learn to walk the

food they ate the games they played as

children the schools they attended the

sports they followed the poets they read

the god they believed in and these are

the things that make them what they are

i’m a firm believer in this idea and

it’s for that reason i’m going to try

and give you some waypoints through my

life that i hope will explain why i’m

standing here today and i hope also

allow you to believe a bit more on what

i have to say

i don’t remember much about my childhood

although my parents do tell me a story

that rings true

i was seven and they organized a

birthday party for me and i hid in my

bedroom until my friends had gone home

knox didn’t like them i’ve been weird

but uh because

i was a bit shy i didn’t like the

tension and just preferred being on my

own

to this day my mum would sometimes

remind me of that and say

give me the boy at seven and i’ll show

you the man

that’s the boy at seven and that’s my

little sister francis i just mainly put

that in there to annoy her

um avoiding people dictated my pastimes

art and sport came out on top

art i loved and i could do on my own and

people would respectfully keep their

distance

as for sport anything individual

preferably not on the school curriculum

cycling in particular the bike went with

me everywhere from the north of scotland

the south of england to the far east it

it gave me a freedom and space that

nothing else could

and as i got stronger and more skillful

it introduced me to the

thrill of fear and adventure then the

speed and competition

eventually racing racing is the

ultimate form of escapism when you’re in

it it’s

so pure so simple nothing else matters

i started with bmxing when i was eight

or nine

then my parents got divorced when i was

that put everything on pause or spell it

up i’m not sure it definitely changed

everything

i decided to leave my mum and sister

behind in england and move with my dad

to hong kong it was there that i took

out mountain biking

and i did my first race when i was 14

and a couple of expat guys saw me and

they were like whoa

you got to get on a road bike and i was

like no way

i’m not wearing lycra and i’m definitely

not shaving my legs

they they didn’t give up on me though

hats off to them they fed me magazines

books

videos anything they could find on road

racing

it worked i converted i sold my mountain

bike and

bought a road bike and from that moment

on

i never rode alone i projected myself

into this imaginary world i created of

european racing

i’d ride around the parks of the country

parks of hong kong

imagining helicopters droning above

motorbikes screaming by

crowds parting in front of me and always

the peloton chasing

the seed was planted art became

secondary

partly because i didn’t think i was

creative enough mainly because with

cycling i realized i might have stumbled

across something i was born to do

and i’d be a fool not to try i had that

binary state of mind where it was all or

nothing

cycling got it all and art almost

nothing

i turned pro when i was 19. my rise

through the ranks had been unprecedented

which was good but it was also bad

because it meant i was so

unprepared for the world i’d signed up

for

at my first pro race in the spring of

1997

it was made evident to me that doping

was rife within professional cycling

i was heartbroken i called my mum up

from that first race

from the hotel and told her what i

discovered and

i didn’t know what to do and i was

scared she told me to come home

as anyone would but

i couldn’t do it i mean she had a point

she said you’ve got a place that art

college held for you

you have another life here waiting for

you come back

but i couldn’t do it i couldn’t let

cycling go

partly because i was naive but more i

was optimistic

i was optimistic that i get stronger the

sport will get cleaner and everything

will be okay

the thing is with optimism it’s like a

plant it needs sunlight and water to

survive

and the deeper i got into professional

cycling the darker it got

and as for water there was none it was

only ever about blood

my fate was sealed and i was oblivious

to it

from the moment of discovery i fell in

love with the tour de france

i couldn’t believe that something so

insane could actually exist a

race a three-week race around france

crossing two mountain ranges

back then only one rest day to think

i’ve been worried about shaving my legs

i need a bloody haircut

i was enamored i learned everything i

could about it

and it soon became clear that it had

been designed as a madness from the very

get-go the big brother of its time

multiple days have curated and married

to drama scripted by the human condition

enough of it to keep the audience coming

back day after day over and over

again it was like love island survivor

national geographic the olympics all

rolled into one and put on wheels

my first tour was in 2000 i was 23 years

old

it was the beginning of the lance

armstrong era

by this point i was effectively french

i’d learned the language i was leading

france’s number one team i lived in a

small town in the southwest called beer

it’s a beautiful place

no other professional cyclists lived

there or even nearby which was the point

i figured that if i stood any chance of

holding onto my identity keeping my

value system

then i was going to have to isolate

myself as much as possible from the

professional cycling world when i could

that first tour was surreal i

won the first stage i wore the yellow

jersey

i was in a bubble for three weeks i

didn’t want it to ever end

on the final day my family and friends

from hong kong

came to paris to watch as i raced up and

down the champs-elysees

one of my friends said to my sister as i

leaned against the barriers

look at him he’s actually living his

dream

the thing is it wasn’t a dream i hadn’t

doped i’d stood my ground

but i was being groomed my team kept me

on an a program of racing they gave me

leadership status

they had me in a four-year contract

instead of the normal ones too they

roomed me with older riders seasoned

campaigners who knew the ropes

not the good ropes and through all of

that they taught me how to inject myself

intravenously and intramuscularly

back then it was normal within

professional cycling that’s how

we ingested our vitamins and supplements

it was not illegal

it was expected learning how to inject

yourself

is not fun and it’s where the grey area

began for me

they talk about gateways in the world of

drugs well

when you look down at your own hand

holding a syringe and you put enough

pressure on that needle to puncture your

skin and you empty the contents into

your body

that’s not sport and yes it’s a gateway

i won’t forget the first time i did it i

was in some shitty hotel room in france

and the team doctor was showing me

an older rider encouraging feels more

sadness looking back

it was a form of sadness then so

although i was clean

i was being taught the tools of the

trade and deep down i knew there was a

certain inevitability to my situation

i was becoming a respected name in the

sport i was on my way to becoming a

genuine tour de france contender

i could feel the weight of expectation

and it was a burden that

i was finding heavy to carry

i was so deep into professional cycling

now i didn’t have anything else in my

life

i perhaps isolated myself too much i

didn’t even have a home to go back to

hong kong

wasn’t just far away it was distant and

incompatible

as for the uk i hadn’t lived there in

over a decade and buried my

port in the storm while it was no longer

a hideaway my tour de france success had

erased my anonymity

the irony is i’d never been better known

and yet i’ve never felt so alone

the following years tour de france this

is 2001 i was 24.

i crashed heavily on the first stage

i ended up quitting the race on stage

my team saw seized their opportunity

and sent me to italy to prepare properly

for the tour of spain

i knew what this meant it was time for

me to grow up to become the professional

i was destined to be

i couldn’t fight it anymore the optimism

i’d had had been withering like an

unwatered plant and

it was made clear to me that it was

impossible to win the tour de france

clean

i couldn’t beat them so i decided to

join them i gave up

in italy i stayed at the family home of

an older teammate

a tuscan villa like something out of a

movie

that’s where i did epo for the first

time

for those of you unfamiliar with epo

it is to endurance sport what steroids

are to sprinting

instead of building muscle it increases

your blood’s oxygen carrying capacity

it’s like having altitude training in a

syringe

i won more races i continued on my

journey towards ultimate tour de france

success

except it wasn’t my journey anymore from

the outside it looked like a smooth and

upward trajectory

yet on the inside sirens were going off

warning lights flashing dials going

haywire

i’d lost control where once there had

been optimism and hope

now there was just shame guilt regret

and lies so many lies

and the joy i’d once had it was gone

it was just relief now when i won relief

that i’d fulfilled my objectives relief

that

i justified the risks i was taking i

became world champion

in 2003 i was 26.

on june 24th 2004 i was arrested by

french police

and beerus and locked up in a cell

on my own for two days i was intimately

interrogated by parisian drug squad

it was horrible yeah i felt like i

deserved it

what i’d done was wrong towards the end

of the 48 hours i had a moment of

clarity

all that time alone in the cell had

forced me to really look at what

happened to me and

imagine that kid back in hong kong and

think geez

i uh i realized from the outside it

could look like i had everything

i hadn’t had anything for a while even

my love for cycling which i loved so

much

i never hated i blamed it for what i’d

become

the person i become and so in that

moment i decided nothing to lose so i

told them everything

i wish i could say that was a low point

it was another year from that moment of

confession until i hit rock bottom

and it was in that process that i

learned something

the struggle is in the fall because when

you’re in that descending spiral

all you do is look down into an abyss

and want

wish it to end and then it does stop

you do hit rock bottom and you have to

make a decision do you lay there broken

or

do you dare look up do you risk standing

up

well somehow i found the courage to look

up and there it was a ray of light a

glimmer of hope

and that’s where my true life journey

began i decided to stand up

i was 28.

i believe in second chances fortunately

others do

too my fall from grace or rather crash

and burn had been an existential crisis

in the truest sense

yeah instead of taking everything away

it gave me everything back

being offered a second chance was like

having a rope thrown down to me

a couple of years after that rock bottom

moment i was speaking at an anti-doping

conference and somebody asked me

the how and why of me turning it around

and i said without thinking

love because that’s what it had been

it was a human condition at its very

best

people choosing to take the hard option

choosing to support me

choosing to take pools in that rope and

help me climb out of the darkness

each of us has to define our purpose

our reason to stand up mine

was to prevent what happened to me

happening to others

and i knew if i was going to do that i

was going to go back into the sport

do it differently and try and change

everything

i started by approaching anti-doping

agencies federations race organizers

telling them i wanted to share my

experiences educate them try and change

their perceptions in the hope that they

could start to change things

i answered every single media request

and told my story over and over and over

again

for the same reason in order to try and

educate the wider public of what had

happened to me

that it wasn’t black and white that

within professional cycling we had a

fundamental cultural problem that was

causing the doping

my first race back after my two-year ban

was a tour de france probably not the

easiest way to go back to but

um in the days leading up to it one of

the biggest doping scandals in the

history of the sport came crashing in

like a tsunami

i became the de facto spokesman uh not

because i wanted to jesus no

but because no other writer would talk

about it i was crushed

to realize that nothing had changed but

this time it didn’t affect me

i i had made my decisions i was going to

do it differently this time

i was going to do it the right way i was

going to do it clean i had my moral

compass essentially welded

due north i had no needle policy on

myself

i decided that syringes were never going

to touch me again unless it was a

medical emergency

i had an off-the-shelf multivitamin a

day my teen doctor thought i was insane

my teammates was just baffled i finished

that first tour de france respectfully

if not gloriously i then went to the

tour of spain

and i won stage 14 a time trial in the

post race press conference the first

thing i said before

even answering a question was

i want young writers to see this and

believe me when i say this

i did this clean i did it on bread and

water it’s possible

i said that because it’s what i needed

to hear when i was younger

it would have given me the hope it would

have fueled my optimism

because without hope there is no

optimism

courageously uk anti-doping nominated me

as their candidate

to the world anti-doping agency’s

athletes commission

this was unheard of definitely

unprecedented as ex-dopa as well

we’re villains we’re pariahs we’re

jettisoned and

forgotten about amazingly wide accepted

my

candidacy and instead of the two years

mandated i was sat from the seat for

four years

during that time i was able to introduce

the no-needle policy into the wider code

i did this in some unorthodox manner we

had a meeting in lausanne and while the

rest of the committee went to lunch

i went to a pharmacy and bought 12

syringes 12 needles 12 amples of saline

solution

on their return from lunch they found

all the medical paraphernalia laid out

in their places

the discomfort was palpable i then

taught them how to build a syringe how

to snap the top off a glass ample

siphon the contents out roll their

sleeve up tourniquet their bicep and

imagine

injects in their forearm i said this is

not sport

no athlete should ever have to do this

this should only be for medical

emergencies

after my ban i won the stages in all the

grand tours

i was the first british rider to wear

all leaders jerseys i won national times

titles and road time trial track i

captained world and olympic teams

and yet for me my proudest

accomplishment is that

is bringing in the no needle policy i

just wish it had been done before they

taught me

2014 was my final year racing

uh apart from the racing and the

anti-doping crusade i’d also written two

books

made two films uh founded and co-owned a

cycling team that pioneered internal

anti-doping

got married had kids i was a bit tired

everybody kept asking me what’s the next

chapter

well here we are full circle the the end

of the beginning

that kid who didn’t think he was

creative enough that choice i didn’t

take to art college

i decided to be that version of myself

and in 2015 i founded a company called

chapter three

after all it wasn’t the second chapter

this is the final act i wanted to create

a company and brand

that could operate differently within

the cycling industry be more creative

make things better do things differently

we have no exit plan

all these things i’ve told you they are

my way points

they are better ways of knowing me as

somerset mum said

and i hope it will allow you to believe

me a bit more when i say this

nothing is impossible

now it took me a while to grasp that

concept

the little boy who had hide away in his

own bedroom at his own birthday party

well around that time

my grandma took me aside and she said

david

i want you to remember something i don’t

want you to ever forget this

she said nothing is impossible nothing

is impossible for you

i thought she was crazy i was of course

things were impossible

and then a couple of months ago i was

putting our boys to bed they’re six and

eight years old and one of them said

daddy that’s impossible

and without realizing what i was doing i

pulled them over and sat them down

either side of my bed

either side of me on the edge of the bed

and i put my arm around and i said guys

i want you to remember this you must

always believe it

nothing is impossible their faces

lit up they got it instantly in the way

i think my grandma had hoped i would 36

years before

the thing is as we get older we find it

difficult to believe that anything is

possible let’s learn that nothing is

impossible

yet more often than not it’s in crisis

when we lay their broken rock bottom

and we dare look up and imagine a better

future

that we rediscover it because without

imagination there is no creativity

as the old saying goes the darkest hour

is just before the dawn

i’m going to leave you with this final

picture i remember my little sister

she’s now the ceo of the world’s

greatest cycling team

this is her congratulating one of her

riders going thomas

she did with him and she’s worked with

him since he was 19 years old

what she couldn’t do for me he won the

tour de france

and he did it clean nothing is

impossible

thank you