This year marks the 10th anniversary of my rather calamitous paragliding accident resulting in the amputation of my left arm, mid-forearm. I’d predicted back then that in a decade I’d have a Luke Skywalker-like hand as a replacement. That didn’t quite happen, but we did get a new Star Wars movie instead.

As I reflect back on my life over the last decade I can honestly say I haven’t missed my hand. What may appear to some as a physical challenge, a disability, I see as an opportunity. An opportunity to challenge myself and in so doing inspire others. I was fortunate back in 2006 to have the mental fortitude that helped me overcome and ultimately survive my ordeal. We all face adversity in life. We are all survivors in one way or another. Yet it seems that whilst most settle for surviving, others go beyond to thrive. How we choose to respond to adversity, big and small, shapes us and perhaps even defines us. Our goal therefore should be to not just overcome life’s challenges and merely survive, but to take each turn of events and thrive. Over the years I have shared through my blog a little of my adventures as I learnt how to thrive.

This year, to mark my 10th anniversary as an amputee, I embark on my most ambitious challenge yet, climbing 19,341 feet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro later this month. Followed by climbing 1,576 stairs to the top of the Empire State Building four days later (the day after my 45th birthday) and finally racing 140.6 miles to complete my 3rd Ironman triathlon this July at Lake Placid, NY.

And to celebrate still being alive 10 years later I’d love to raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation who provide opportunities and support to those with physical challenges, children and adults alike, so they can pursue active lifestyles through physical fitness and competitive athletics.

If you’d like to support my efforts and donate you can click the button below.

Help me raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation*

*80 cents of every dollar goes to support those with physical challenges

To put form to the myriad of thoughts that loop over and over in my mind. That, once on paper, actually turn out to be far less dramatic or important than they first appeared. It keeps me honest. It keeps me sane. Writing, not typing, but actually writing. Putting pen to paper and writing down each thought, slowing down the stream of consciousness, unravelling individual strands of thought and focusing the mind singularly on one at a time. Allowing my pen to capture each in its totality. And once on paper, freeing my mind. It’s hard to hold onto something that barely fills a page of my small notebook. Really, I’m angry, frustrated, upset or worried because of that? No. Instead I see it for what it is. And either let it go or choose to do something about it. Either way it no longer keeps me up at night or distracted during the day. A powerful thing indeed ‘tis taking pen to paper.

There’s advice, the everyday words that you hear from others, that more often than not goes in one ear and out the other. And then there’s Advice. Words that weave themselves into the very fabric of your soul. That you write down, come back to, that become a principle or belief that shapes your life. Sometimes (perhaps often) that Advice comes from the strangest of places.

There’s the usual sources of course, books, quotes from historical figures, friends, mentors, religious texts. All fine sources. Yet this piece of Advice came from none of them and is perhaps the most profound advice that I have ever heard. Advice that you can truly live your life by. Advice that I’ve written down often. That comes to mind immediately should anyone ask, “what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?”. Advice that seems so simple, yet is far from simplistic.

All good Advice should be like that, don’t you think? Simple to understand, yet rarely simple to live by. I bet if I asked you right now, “what is the best advice you’ve ever received?”, you’d smile as it effortlessly popped into your mind. Well mine came from a movie. Not too strange you say? OK, it came from a movie that’s described by Wikipedia as a “pastiche-jukebox musical”. No, not the Disney kind, although Frozen’s “let it go” is some pretty good Advice to live by. No, it came from a Baz Luhrmann movie. A movie he wrote, directed and produced. A movie I absolutely love for all of its flamboyance and spectacle. This is the movie that I’ve watched more than any other, that I’ve purchased and repurchased from DVD to Blu Ray to digital streaming. The movie I love to watch with the volume cranked high on a huge screen. As good now as it was when it was released in 2001 (admittedly it did get nominated for 8 Oscars).

For it was from this movie that one of my best pieces of Advice came, and it really is quite simple:

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

Thank you Moulin Rouge, thank you Baz Luhrmann and thank you Ewan McGregor who spoke these words in the movie.

Advice from a strange place indeed.