3 Feet A Day
[Music]
thank you so much that was
quite the introduction i can’t wait to
hear what i have to say
this might look like a
boring odd prop
common yardstick this
means so much more to me
this is a verified measuring device i
don’t use it
to measure a piece of carpet
where to hang a picture on the wall this
is my journey every single day three
feet a day
there’s hundreds of hash marks
on this yardstick and you can attach a
different emotion
to every one of those marks it’s amazing
what we are capable of feeling
as human beings attach some goals
some dreams some plans
all on this three foot guide
20 years ago literally
on this day march 26th
- i’m living the dream
working as a things police officer
28 years old solid as a rock
till 11 21 pm that night
just a few miles from here i was on my
way to an emergency call
lights and siren came to a brief stop
at a red light
and i was struck from behind by a taxi
driver suffering an epileptic seizure
doing 115 miles an hour
i didn’t drive through that intersection
i was shot through that intersection
like out of a cannon and it’s easy
to reflect back and say when you hit
from behind it will propel you forward
well i went forward so far so fast
that i didn’t wake up until june
12th two and a half months in a blink of
an eye
woke up to my doctors my friends
my family saying jason
you’re burned over 40 percent of your
body
fourth degree burns from the neck up
something i’ve never heard
down the last layers of muscle into the
bone
you’ve lost half your fingers you’re
completely blind
your muscles have atrophied so much
laying here you’ve lost 61 pounds
and the bad news kept coming you’re
never going to return to work
you’re never going to play golf again a
game that i loved so much i was a two
handicap
at the time
those were
verifiable truths at the time but they
were only temporary
it took me a lot of days and nights
a lot of time alone with myself
and asking questions to put everything
together
but then i realized
that if i chose to have accountability
for where i was for the most part we are
all exactly
where we’ve chosen to be i chose to be a
police officer
i chose to answer for a call
out of my patrol zone i chose my route
of travel
that took me back many years i gave up a
golf scholarship to college
to join the military chose to only spend
my four years and move on
it was not a random
tragic moment in time all of those
choices i had made over all those years
that’s what led me to that intersection
to that fire into that hospital bed
and 20 years later
onto this stage
verification simply means acceptance
and when i accepted where i was what my
fate
at the time was i was able to start
building the positive attitude
positive momentum and the beautiful
thing about that is it’s an unstoppable
force once it gets going you just got to
get out of the way
every time i went to therapy and came
home got a little bit stronger
every surgery i had got a little bit
better
now as you can imagine i did not have
a lot of things to smile about certainly
didn’t have anything to laugh about
and the old cliche that laughter is the
best medicine
is very very true well i found
my sense of humor in a very odd place
in january of
2002 i was invited to participate in the
olympic
torch run as it passed through phoenix
on its way to salt lake
city and i get down there and this young
girl comes up and she says australia we
have a wheelchair for you
we’ve got a guy who’s going to carry the
torch for you
400 yards and i said you know i don’t
know how it’s going to go this is a
once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity so i’d really like to carry
the torch and at least walk down the
street
and as sweet as she could she looked at
me and she said okay
when you’re carrying the torch make sure
you don’t get the flame too close to
your face
and i said no
[Applause]
i am the one guy who does not need those
instructions
and i walked back over to my friends and
i said you are not going to believe what
this girl just said to me
and we were doubled over in the middle
of the street
laughing as hard as we could and i have
not stopped laughing since
all right thank you
when i first got out from the hospital i
had a lot to deal with my three-year-old
son at the time
he would cry and run out of any room i
was in he would openly say
you’re not my dad
i don’t know what rock bottom means to
all of you
but that was mine
and i was determined
to embrace gratitude i was no longer
consumed by fire
gratitude and in that gratitude
i will go back to work i will play golf
again
and i will be my children’s dad
but on 18 months later to have my third
child
two weeks after that got into a truck by
myself
drove back to work public information
officer
homicide detective for the city of
phoenix eventually retiring
five and a half years after the accident
life truly is 10 of what happens to us
and 90
how we react to it and there’s so few
things
that we are in control of but we’re in
control of our attitude
at all times every person you deal with
every situation you face
you get to choose how you’re going to
respond
and you’re not always going to win those
battles it is okay
to not be okay a lot of times people
hear the word vulnerability
and they think it means weakness it
doesn’t
it means strength and beauty
i did go back to work i did learn how to
play golf again
and i worked hard at it i got my
handicap back down to a one
i could play golf better after the
accident than i could before
that three-year-old boy is now a 22 year
old successful young man who is very
proud
to call me dad
thank you
i love irony and i wish i had time to
tell you all the
amazing ironies that have happened along
my journey
but the one that really sticks out is
ever since i was a child when i would
see
a picture or graphic of a phoenix it
always meant one thing
and i was born and raised here and then
i grew up to be a phoenix police officer
and then i actually did
rise from the fire but what the
phoenix signifies is our human spirit
and the human spirit you can’t touch it
taste it see it it is the most powerful
entity in the world and it doesn’t
matter
your age your race your religion how
much money you have in the bank
we are all created equal
and our human spirit is designed for one
thing
is to take you away from risk and stray
toward reward
you just have to choose to let it soar
i learned a lot of things
along this journey constantly inside
of these hash marks whether it was
excitement enthusiasm success
all the way down to the tears and the
anger and the anxiety
and the hopelessness i embraced all of
it
and i figured out something that means
so much to me that i chose
to have it permanently etched into my
skin
and that is sometimes the most beautiful
inspirational changes will disguise
themselves
as utter devastation be patient
how will you choose to go three feet
every day thank you all
thank you