I don’t believe my accident happened for a reason. I believe bad things happen to great people every second of every day.
What I do believe is this: the way you move forward when life feels impossible is what defines you.
Today I’m sitting quietly, reflecting on August 27, 2010. Fifteen years ago I broke my neck in shallow water. I thought my life was over.
And yet—here I am.
HOW I MEASURE MY LIFE
I don’t measure my life by what I lost. I measure it by what I’ve built:
✅ Surviving 7 years in a hospital → building an advocacy career in health equity
✅ Guiding corporations on access, inclusion, and disability research
✅ Creating a keynote speaking business that takes me around the world
✅ Delivering a TEDx with over 500,000 views
✅ Becoming a published author
✅ Donating 20% of my time to nonprofit boards advancing equity
✅ Always engaging in the most crazy adventures
Is it exhausting? Of course.
Is it worth it? Absolutely.
THE BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY PIECE 🧠
Psychologists tell us that humans are wired to adapt—but the ones who thrive are the ones who change the yardstick.
If you only measure life by what you’ve lost, you’ll stay stuck in grief. If you measure life by what you create, who you help, and how you grow—that’s where meaning lives.
GRATITUDE & RESPONSIBILITY
I remember meeting a very successful 37-year-old quadriplegic when I was injured and thinking, “I’ll never get there.” Now I’m 42, and I get the calls from young people and parents just starting this journey. I feel gratitude—and responsibility—to be the voice I once needed.
WHAT’S NEXT
This anniversary also comes at the most incredible milestone yet: next week I’ll launch my book at the North Carolina Museum of Art, surrounded by 220 friends and hundreds more cheering from afar
CLICK HERE to Buy My Book
This life is messy. Complicated. Beautiful. Heartbreaking. And full of love.
And when the battery runs low, well… I recharge. 🔋
📖 For the first time, I’m also sharing a private story I once wrote for my dad about the night of my accident—a night he unknowingly saved my life. Full story:
The Power of One
Have you ever had that one person who showed up when you needed them most?
- The one who pushed you a little harder, believed in you a little more, or held you up when you were at your absolute lowest?
For me, that person is my dad. My hero. My British, brilliant, sometimes frustrating, always loyal best friend.
Now, I didn’t appreciate his wisdom at 13—especially when he used a bag of Cape Cod potato chips to teach me my first lesson in supply and demand.
- All I could think about was how many “dad” lectures stood between me and that next crispy crunchy potato chips. Let’s just say as a roly-poly kid, I took the art of snack based negotiations very seriously.
He’s one of those dads who shows love through action. And also to be the smartest man I know. Not just trivia smart — he makes you feel like you need a dictionary and a diagram just to “keep up” kind of smart, but any humble way.
- His photographic memory is also so sharp, I’m just grateful he uses it for good and not world domination.
- But for better or worse… He’s why I’m here today. And not in the cheesy motivational way.
- I mean literally here. Alive.
In 2010, at 27 years old, I took a shallow dive off a tiki bar at my home in the Bahamas and was instantly paralyzed from the chest down. There were no doctors on the island, so my dad found an emergency jet to fly me to Miami for surgery.
Mid-air, the plane hit walls of tropical thunderstorms. The pilots panicked. Turbulence was so intense that we dropped 10 ft and 1 second. THEY turned The plane around to another island with a small hospital that made the roach motel look like the Ritz
- My blood pressure was crashing. Time was running out.
- So my dad, somehow calm as ever, hunted down a second plane. He was a seasoned pilot himself and nearly took over the controls to fly us through the storm.
But he didn’t.
Because I needed something else more than a hero in the cockpit. I needed my dad. I was strapped to a gurney, blood pouring from my head, a neck brace three sizes too big, and a fear I can still feel in my bones.
He was calm, when I wasn’t. Steady when I was falling apart. He stroked my hair, pressed ice chips to the back of my bleeding neck, and rubbed my forehead as he told me everything was going to be okay — even though we both knew it might not be.
And then, just for a second, our eyes locked. No words. No drama. Just a silent understanding: this could be the end for his baby girl.
- In my darkest hour, he gave me what I needed most – the steady love of a father who refused to let go.
- And if that’s not the definition of love… I don’t know what is. That moment taught me something I carry into every speech, every struggle, every story:
You don’t need a hundred people to show up for you. You just need one who doesn’t leave when things get hard.
If we’re lucky, we find that one. And if we’re really lucky—we become that one for someone else.
So, I ask you: Who’s your person?
Because sometimes, one steady presence in the storm is all it takes to change everything.
And that… Is the Power of One.
