These Shoes Were Made for Walking
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
this is a bit awkward isn’t it
[Music]
good afternoon can everybody in this
room
see my shoes
for those of you at the back that can’t
i have to admit they’re the most
ostentatious
and over-the-top shoes you can imagine
and i bought them almost six years ago
to the day with my first pay packet when
i started work as a solicitor
in london but looking at them now
they’re in better condition today than
they were
the day they were taken off that shelf
and placed on my feet for me
and you’re going to find out exactly why
that is
now by way of background i am a mouth
painting artist
i achieved history for somebody with my
level of disability when
completing the new york marathon
i was an olympic torch bearer in 2012
and i received an obe later that year
for services
to charity
but it hasn’t always been that way
i looking back i think i had a fairly
ordinary childhood
brought up by two loving parents
at school i saw myself very much as an
arounder
i was fairly academic but i had a great
love and passion for sport
i played qriket for my school football
for my school and county
i was a qualified scuba diver i had a
great love
for rugby i played rugby for my school
my town my county my region i toured
australia
and new zealand at the age of 16 and
just a few months before my
17th birthday i was trying to play
semi-professionally for the london
broncos
rugby league academy site
but all of that changed on the 4th of
april
now on the 4th of april i was playing my
very first match for the broncos academy
away versus halifax in yorkshire
now the match kicked off looking back i
remember consciously thinking to myself
that my dream
of one day becoming a professional rugby
player had just become
one step closer
but it was just 20 seconds into that
match
as i went into my first tackle of the
match as i had hundreds and if not
thousands of times before was going up
playing the game
that’s something went terribly wrong
i’ve since been told that as i went into
that tackle one of my own teammates
came in to help me but as he did so his
knee
struck me inside my neck and broke it
instantly
now lying on the pitch i can’t explain
how
but i knew what i’d done i knew i’d
broken my neck
the paramedics were asking me to move my
toes
i couldn’t the physiotherapist asking
if i could feel them touch my hands
i couldn’t there were visions of
christopher reeve flooding my mind the
prospect of a
future life as a disabled person
confined to a wheelchair
was inescapable as i lay on the pitch
that day
contemplated my future the last thing i
remember
before i stopped breathing and felt
unconscious was simply pleading
with the paramedics to let me die
but they didn’t i was airlifted
from the pitch to the neuro-intensive
care unit in leeds general
in family where i was kept in an induced
coma for two days
during that period it was unclear
whether i had sustained brain damage due
to oxygen
deprivation on the pitch but what was
clear from the scans and the x-rays was
that i’d suffered
a dislocation of the third and the
fourth vertebra of my spinal column
and the prospect that if and when i was
to awake that i’d be severely disabled
was already clear
now after two days the decision was
taken to wake me
the doctors had to determine whether i
had sustained brain damage
now at that time i was intubated and
therefore couldn’t speak
i could move no part of my body below my
neck
and i was heavily sedated and so i
remember being told
that if i understood what’s being said
to me
i should simply blink my eyes once
do you know who you are
one blink do you know what your name is
one blink do you know where you are
one blink do you know what
i’m about to say to you
one blink
i didn’t need to be told that i broke my
neck that my chances of survival
were unclear that i never again
voluntarily moved any part of my body
below my neck
and that the life that i’d lived loved
enjoyed
but ultimately taken for granted for the
first 17 years
and 15 days of my life was over
i already knew
my recollection of my time release is
extremely vague you know i was heavily
sedated and extremely poorly
however i do remember the nightmares
those horrific dreams in which i could
no longer move
in that first split second when i awoke
that’s what it was
a nightmare and then reality hit
now what followed were nine months spent
recovering in three different
hospitals during which those hospitals
became my home
and the nhs and the doctors nurses
and healthcare professionals that cared
for me became my family
now in all i spent 258 days
lying in a hospital bed and that gave me
an unthinkable
amount of time to think i saw myself as
a victim
why me what have i done to deserve this
now for me at that time the mindset of a
victim was a safe world for me
that i felt entitled to wallow in
self-pity
and i sought solace and if not comfort
from
everybody’s kindness and their sympathy
but whilst 99 of me wanted to remain in
the safe world
as a victim they remained one percent
within me
this tiny burning ember which was
terrified by the prospect of giving up
of giving in and terrified by the
prospect of a lifetime defined
by my disability
by that time i simply didn’t have the
strength of body the strength of mind
nor the knowledge to cross that
all-important
psychological barrier between remaining
a victim
and actually becoming accountable for
how i responded to the tragic
hand of cards i’d be in doubt
for me the worst times were the middle
of the night
and during those endless hours when i
woke in hospital i could feel myself
slipping into a deeper void
i was becoming more aware of the life
that i’d lost
and that this new life of mine was
different
this new life was a life trapped in
hospitals attached to machine to
monitors
i couldn’t eat drink sleep
talk or move
this new life was incredibly scary and
lonely and
i knew i know that if i’d faced this new
life alone
i would have stayed on the wrong side of
that barrier
that victim but i didn’t face this new
life alone
with the support of my family my friends
and my nhs family that helped me propel
me
across that line
now life in hospital was tough
but the catalyst was nurse tracy
nurse tracy came to me one night in
august 2004
four months after i got hurt and she was
working the night shift and she was
definitely when i most needed
her advice support and encouragement
no it wasn’t what nurse tracy did that
changed my life
it was how old she did it it wasn’t the
taken of my vital ops
my temperature my blood pressure it was
her comforting smile
her listening ear for the offer of
insight into the successful lives
of previous patients which helped to
shine a glimmer of hope on this new life
of mine and nurse tracy told me about
ex-patients of us that had gone on to
successfully rebuilt their lives
she signposted me to charities
established to help people
suffering from spinal cord injury nurse
tracy showed me
that life with a disability did not mean
life confined
by a disability now nurse tracy did not
need to do this
but by focusing on what she on how she
did it
rather than what she did it was this
smallish gesture
which to me had the biggest impact
now nurse tracy told me about previous
patients
that had gone on to successfully rebuild
their lives
but what exactly did that mean for me
you know there’s a cliche in life that
there’s always somebody worse off than
you
but for me that simply wasn’t true i was
in the national spinal
injury center the biggest spinal unit in
the country
and i was the only ventilated patient
but simply i was the worst of the worst
i had no peer with whom to speak or seek
advice or comfort
it was an incredibly scary time
but i knew that if i didn’t face up to
my challenges then
i never would
now rebuilding my life for me at the
time was
completely unidentifiable it was a new
life to me i didn’t know what
this new life brought for me
you know i knew that if i focused on the
destination goal
of rebuilding my life i would fail
i didn’t know what it looked like it was
unidentifiable
unquantifiable unobtainable
i knew that if i focused on the same
goal i’d quickly lose
direction because i didn’t know what i’d
be doing in the next hour
let alone the next day week month year
or in 10 years time in this new life
of mine but rebuilding my life
meant i had to bring it back under my
control i knew that if i focused on the
end goal
the end destination i would fail and so
i broke it down into the smallest of
component parts
i created little achievable challenges
for myself
every morning when the nurses brought my
medication around rather than trying to
learn what
all my tablets did for me all at once
every day i gave myself the task of
learning what just one more of my
tablets did for me
every day when i was taken to the spinal
gymnasium
when the physios put me on the tilt
table trying to stab me up vertically
i knew that my blood pressure would drop
and i would faint if i tried to stand up
immediately
so every day i tried to stand just one
degree
closer to vertical now yes it did take
longer but by breaking down this
unachievable goal
into achievable challenges i brought it
back under my control
and slowly but surely the accumulation
of these little wins
did combine tell me get my foot on the
first rung of the ladder towards
rebuilding my life every bit of my life
has been
a matter of conquering my mindset
so many possibilities in life were close
to me that day on the pitch
but so many possibilities remained and
precious view
new possibilities were created
in short i had to focus on the doors
that remained opened
rather than all the doors that were
closed to me on the pitch that day
now i want everybody to look at this
slide and tell me the first thing that
comes into your mind
this is pretty basic maths
four times four is wrong yes
when i was in hospital in the mindset of
a victim
i focused on the one thing that was
wrong with me
my broken neck my broken body
but they that day when i took the
decision to try and maximize my quality
of life by becoming accountable
for what i made of myself it quickly
became apparent that if i was to
maximize what i could do
i had to focus on all the things i could
still do
all my qualities that remained all my
strengths
yes there is one thing wrong with this
slide but there’s three things that are
correct
rather than focusing on my broken neck i
choose to focus
on my one which was the fact that my
brain was not injured on the pitch that
day
i focused on the four which was the
support of my family
my friends and my nhs family which
helped propel me across that line
between remaining a victim
and becoming accountable and i chose to
focus on the nine
which was my my own personal willingness
to do whatever it took
to maximize what i could still achieve
in this life of mine
now at the start i asked you to look at
my shoes
now if i focused on the 15 and the fact
that i’m never going to walk a step in
these shoes
that would be heartbreaking but instead
i choose to focus on the positives
and the one the four and the nine and
the fact that i’m never
going to have to buy enough pair of
shoes again
in my life now yes these shoes
were made for walking by by focusing all
the things i can still do
focusing on my strengths i don’t just
intend to walk this way through life and
tend to walk
jog run skip and dance so tomorrow
morning when you put on your shoes make
a commitment to yourself
to focus on all the strengths you bring
to any given task all your qualities
and you won’t just walk your way through
life you’ll do the salsa
the rumba and for the more adventurous
of you you will twerk your way
real life thank you