They both got to meet me earlier this week! I should rephrase that â I was lucky enough to meet them both, as well as TV presenter Jake Humphrey and Professor Damien Hughes (from the High Performance Podcast). Iâll share some of the lessons I picked up from them next time.
I also met the quite extraordinary Darren Edwards, a qualified teacher. Like me you may not have heard of him, yet his incredible story is one to reflect on and think about how we might have responded.
And how we respond to our own life and the choices we make every single day.
Quick synopsis: Former soldier, newly qualified teacher, active mountaineer and trying out for the special forces reserves, severed his spinal cord when rocks gave way while climbing a rock face. After a long rehabilitation and just two weeks before leaving hospital, his fiancĂ©e ended their relationship as she couldnât see how to make things work. Five years later, after struggling with his mental health, partly in coping with Darrenâs accident, his father Ray took his own life.
So how have these defined Darrenâs life and what lessons are there for us â particularly staff and students as they battle the everyday challenges of workload, social media and life. If you are interested in finding out, you can read on by clicking here.
As someone who has been fortunate enough to recruit and hear many Paralympians talk when I cofounded a national charity taking them into schools, Darrenâs message is one of the best I have heard â if you are looking for a speaker then I would recommend him.
Before I share the lessons, we should catch up on the rest of the story.
The accident took place on the 6th August 2016, when Darren aged 26, was out climbing Worldâs End, a sheer rock face in Wales, with his best mate. After climbing it multiple times, they went for one last climb. Darren reached the top and was looking to secure the rope so he could help his partner undertake the final ascent.
Stood there he heard a noise and the rock he was standing on gave way and he was hurtling down the cliff side. A ledge stopped his fall and as he was about to slide off and complete the fall to the cliff bottom, which would have meant certain death, his climbing partner ran along it and leapt on top of him to stop him going over.
By responding instantly and detaching himself from his own rope, having seen Darren start to fall, he had risked his own life â a selfless act that we would all like to think we would be able to take if others are in danger.
Picture them stuck on that ledge, waiting for hours for the mountain rescue team and a helicopter to reach them, to load Darren into a spinal harness and only then lift him up and take him to hospital.
Like many other stories I have heard, there is often a period of and Darren began to think about how he would walk again â believing it to be possible. It took a blunt conversation from the doctor to tell him. âHis message was that this was the end of this chapter of life and the beginning of a new one, as Iâd severed my spinal cord, leaving no connection between upper and lower.â This was hard to hear and even two years later, he was still learning and adapting to the trauma.
Just two weeks before leaving hospital, after 5 months of rehabilitation, his fiancĂ©e told him, âI should have said this a long time ago, but I canât do this, and I canât see this working.â
âShe burst into tears, stood up and walked out the double doors of the ward and I never saw her again. It was a time when I really needed people around me, especially when you thought you could have spent the rest of your life with that person.â
The message from his close friends and that he had to tell himself was strength through adversity, and he tried out for Paralympic GB Kayaking. While he lasted just seconds the first time, before tipping over, and took a long time to be able to race, the kayaking team continued to let him work with them, because of his never give up attitude.
While he didnât make the Olympics it has led him to a life of adventure and building relationships with multiple teams. This has really helped him deal with further tragedy, when his father took his own life. Throwing himself into activities, fundraising and supporting others with spinal cord injuries and mental health challenges. His adventures have included:
- Being part of the team, all with various degrees of disability, to successfully Kayak from Landâs End to John OâGroats
- Rowing the English Channel
- Successfully completing the Vatnajokull crossing as part of the first all disabled team to conquer Europeâs largest Ice Cap
- Becoming an expert adaptive free diver
- Becoming the first disabled person to complete the World Marathon Challenge â 7 marathons in 7 days, in 7 countries!
And in December 2024 he will attempt the South Pole Challenge.
Through adversity and reaching a place where in Darrenâs own words, âI am where I am supposed to be,â what have been his biggest lessons? There are five.
- Ownership and Accountability â Whatever happens in your life you must own it and be accountable to yourself. No one else is in control of your story. You have to face up to challenges, never give up and not let them beat you.
- Reframe Problems â Look forward and not backwards at things that you cannot change. Think about where you want to be in the future â he looked at 4 years ahead. Identify who you want to be, what actions you will take and what emotions you need to manage. How we view obstacles matters and take small steps to overcome them â what is the next action? For him it was that first step into a kayak that led to all the other adventures and the success he has subsequently found.
- Courage â Step up in difficult situations. Courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to act despite it. Conquer self-doubt by drawing from past experiences, avoid the curse of comparisons (others have doubts too) and build confidence through marginal gains. Look for small steps and wins.
- Social Connection â Focus on helping others as part of a team and being a role model â it is very difficult to quit or be selfish when you are committed to supporting those that need it.
- Purpose â Have real clarity of purpose and what you want to be, do and stand for. Use this to engage with others, build a unified team and to become a beacon of hope â for yourself and others.
I admit to having more than one tear in my eye when listening to and talking with Darren. It makes me feel silly when thinking of how insignificant many things are that I let bother me! It brought into mind one other word or lesson from me â PERSPECTIVE.
Next time you have a challenge think about perspective. Whatâs the scale of the challenge, will it still be there next week, does it really matter? Then think of Darren, what he had to overcome and the lessons he shared, and then dismiss or deal with it. Remember itâs your story.This is a link to Darrenâs website if you want to find out more about him.