00:00:00
g'day and welcome to Runners only with dom Harvey on this episode Brad smailer
00:00:05
part two it's just finding gratitude for yeah for the things that that we love
00:00:11
about our lives and focusing on what is good so there is gratitude there but I I
00:00:16
don't know if I could ever say I'm grateful for the injury itself that's just a tough one to yeah to get
00:00:23
through yeah this is the very first of the podcast the very first repeat guest Brad
00:00:29
was a guest on episode four of the podcast way back in March 2022 this is the first time we've had someone back
00:00:34
the first conversation with Brad is still one of the most talked about podcasts that I've done it doesn't
00:00:39
really matter if you haven't heard that one though you can dive straight into
00:00:41
this one um I'll just give you a brief summary about the amazing bread smeller and who
00:00:46
he is eight years ago Brad had a life that a lot of people would have gladly traded for theirs he was one of the
00:00:51
world's best wakeboarders and he spent his 20s chasing Summers and girls actually to be more specific he um he
00:00:59
didn't have to do all that much chasing when it came to the ladies then in a
00:01:02
split second accident he ended up quadriplegic still the same Brain still the same personality still the same be
00:01:09
rad but no feeling or movement from the neck down in this Split Second he went from being fiercely independent to being
00:01:15
completely reliant on round-the-clock carers for even the most basic human functions like wiping away tears
00:01:20
bread over the years has done some intense work and acceptance to become the man he is today and now he has
00:01:26
shared his entire journey in a brilliant book called owning it I didn't hesitate
00:01:30
to get Brad back for a second chat because I think we can all get so much from Brad's journey and I hope you guys
00:01:35
enjoy Brad's company as much as what I do if you like this chat maybe check out
00:01:39
his book owning it he could have got a ghost writer or used voice memos but Brad's a perfectionist so he wrote every
00:01:46
last letter using a math stylist and his iPhone whatever you're doing when you're
00:01:50
listening to this I hope you take a moment to reflect on just how lucky you are to be doing whatever you're doing
00:01:55
driving walking running cycling vacuuming showering making the bed cutting your toenails
00:02:02
whatever some of these things are called chores but if you can do these things you're
00:02:07
lucky and the ability to do all of these things could be taken away at a moment all right let's get into it Brad snailer
00:02:15
hey this is fast paced slow and steady anyway you coming up just wanna connect for
00:02:27
everyone who loves running this is [Music] fast paced slow and steady anyway you
00:02:37
coming just wanna connect for everyone who loves running hey Runners only with dom Harvey Runners only with Don Harvey
00:02:45
and for the first time ever um a return guest Brett Smiler ah I'm honored to be back again and uh love to
00:02:54
knock out the first so good to be back with you man yeah so um we by the way if anyone wants to um hear
00:03:01
the the interview we did the first time around that was like um when the podcast
00:03:04
launched like maybe February or March this year um I recorded the chat with you before
00:03:08
the podcast had even launched you you asked nothing about it you were like sure come on your [ __ ] podcast so I
00:03:14
came around home and we recorded it so if anyone wants to go back and listen to that that hasn't already you're welcome
00:03:19
to it feels like it's a different conversation to be had now um because I feel like I know so much more about you
00:03:28
yeah it's um I mean A lot's happened since that last uh last podcast our last
00:03:32
chat um I mean I haven't been many places apart from in my bed I've been on bed
00:03:39
rest for about six months and had a couple of surgeries and a few issues going on but through that time we got
00:03:45
the book out we you know I finished editing I did the proofreading and got it out it's in stores in people's hands
00:03:51
and you know you're most of the way through it now as well yeah yeah I I you
00:03:55
might be fooled by looking at my apartment because I've got boxes and boxes of books but I'm I buy books but
00:04:00
the intention of reading them sort of flick through and then never commit and I thought it'd be the same with your
00:04:04
book because it's bloody daunting it's a big read it's a mess it's Lord of the
00:04:08
Rings size but um I've I've loved it man I'm so glad like and that that was yeah
00:04:13
my one worry with how many pages there are was that people would kind of be scared to pick it up off the shelves but
00:04:20
uh from the you know the response I've had so far it's people when they start
00:04:25
reading it they can't put it down so um that's yeah that's amazing feedback
00:04:30
to get and I'm just really stoked with the response so far yeah so much to talk
00:04:34
about with the book yeah first of all let's talk about your year so I saw you
00:04:37
maybe January or February this year at your house at that time like we made a commitment to each other that we were
00:04:42
going to like run run a marathon I was going to push you in the the Red Bull Wings for life but you've um you've had
00:04:47
a to put it bluntly a prick of a year yeah it's been uh it's been really
00:04:52
challenging and to be going through just some medical issues some health health problems um you know bowel related stuff
00:04:59
that's just yeah it's kind of meant that I wasn't able to sit in my wheelchair at all I
00:05:04
wasn't able to tolerate it tolerate it I know even when we had our chat last time
00:05:08
we had to pause every 10-15 minutes for me to be able to kind of um get my weight off my button and yeah
00:05:16
kind of ease some of the symptoms that I was getting so that's that's improved you know I had
00:05:20
two surgeries actually the second one was a repeat of the first one because it wasn't fully successful so
00:05:26
things are getting better now I'm able to be up in my chair a bit longer and
00:05:30
I've got one surgery to go follow-up scans next week so we'll um see how
00:05:36
things are going but it's good to be able to get up and out and especially at this time you know the
00:05:40
books out I want to be able to do media and you know we had the the book launched last week and so um no it's
00:05:46
just great to be back up and and sort of getting better again is this just the life of a quadriplegic
00:05:54
pretty much yeah it's it's just kind of got to be used to the fact that you get
00:05:57
[ __ ] thrown at you new new issues new challenges um throughout you know and that's going to
00:06:05
be the case for the rest of my life I think it's it's never going to be fully
00:06:08
under control where I have no further issues it's just I think it's just the way the way it is
00:06:14
and um you just kind of got to accept that and do what we can what's the longest you've gone feeling good
00:06:21
like is it three months six months yeah probably something like that I know over
00:06:26
the years there's you know every a couple of times a year that I'll end up in hospital with a
00:06:31
bladder infection or actually there was maybe a year or so where I didn't um
00:06:37
but no it's yeah there's constantly struggles with the situation and it's
00:06:43
just um just part of it and just trying to keep on top of it as best I can and you know I've got chronic pain so it
00:06:50
means I'm in pain at all times um is that right like whereabouts uh my whole body I've got like nerve pain so
00:06:57
neuropathic pain which is like sort of like a pins and needles sort of tingling sensation but it's it's unpleasant it's
00:07:04
like a burning cold Sensation that um I would call it maybe a two to three out of ten in terms of pain
00:07:11
um but it's kind of it's just there all the time and then what can alleviate it
00:07:15
is there meat weed yeah cannabis Health yes um I you know I'm on pregabalon which is in
00:07:23
nerve pain medication which helps and we are about to do a review of my pain meds
00:07:27
and and just kind of make sure I'm on the best thing that I can be on and just try and get things under control
00:07:36
it's got to be frustrating as hell it is yeah it is and it's one of those
00:07:41
things it's just I've just had to learn what I do and don't have control of and
00:07:45
you know obviously my health I can I can work on that and you know whatever I'm eating and drinking and all that
00:07:52
sort of stuff and how I'm treating my body but at the end of the day there are
00:07:56
some things that I just can't control and I just need to do what I can and make the best out of out of the life I
00:08:03
got and um so that's kind of what the book's about really as well yeah yeah it is I reckon maybe 75 80 of
00:08:11
the way through it I'm recording this on the assumption that most people listening to this probably haven't read
00:08:16
it yet and we want them to so I I'm sort of torn this the things in the book
00:08:21
obviously that I want to talk about but also I don't want to give away too many
00:08:24
too many spoilers but what I will say is that the first 290 pages of the book 200
00:08:30
that by the way that's bigger than most normal books on it so first 290 Pages
00:08:34
that's um that's Brad smailer pre-accident yeah and so I really wanted to to give the full picture of what life
00:08:42
was like oh and you certainly did yeah it didn't hold much back um what did you hold back I mean that what
00:08:52
ended up in the book is only half of what I initially wrote so uh you know the Publishers have read all the uh the
00:08:58
unfiltered version and it's um yeah Mo you know we we kept it as raw as possible and um but we just kind of
00:09:07
trimmed out the parts that weren't necessary and kind of you know we've got
00:09:12
enough um Talk of sex and things like that in there that oh every other might flick
00:09:18
open to any page in this brand and it says yeah that was it you know I was just I
00:09:23
was a young you know young man of my late teens early 20s and you know traveling the world and I was
00:09:29
single and I you know I tried to have some relationships and tried long distance and it just didn't quite work
00:09:34
and um didn't feel like I was in a position to be able to like bring someone with me
00:09:39
and so yeah I was just living the single life and tried to be as authentic about
00:09:43
that as possible and upfront with with the woman that I was with and you know obviously there were one night stands
00:09:49
and things like that but um yeah it was just uh that was just part of the life and I wanted to
00:09:55
to really paint that picture as authentically as I can and give people the real full story before the injury
00:10:02
happened so that then they can feel how far I fell you know and how how hard that hit me and and you know how much it
00:10:11
affected me in in many different ways and I kind of really dig into that um through the the last half of the book
00:10:18
as I was reading it I I don't know you that well but I feel like through following you on Instagram and meeting a
00:10:24
couple of times I know you're well enough and I feel like everything you do is quite purposeful so there must have
00:10:28
been a reason for that and I'm guessing the reason is to like paint a very very
00:10:31
Vivid picture of what your life was like pre-accident but I'm there's probably
00:10:35
going to be a lot of women in particular that'll read it that'll think you're an
00:10:38
ass totally and that's semi by Design you know like you've got to show growth
00:10:42
throughout a story like this um you know and that was a growth that I that I made in my life and you know and
00:10:49
and then you know talking about sex as well like a sex pre-injury and post injury and part of the reason for that
00:10:54
was people are very intrigued about spinal cord injury and Kanye shut up what's going on Kanye hey what's up but
00:11:04
no people are very interested about like can I have sex what can I feel what what
00:11:09
what's that experience like so again I wanted the full story I wanted people to
00:11:15
you know I didn't want to hold anything back and so kind of wanted that comparison of pre-injury and post injury
00:11:21
with sex was like and relationships and even like how much I focused on you know
00:11:28
and how much importance I put on um sex and and stuff before the accident leads into the issues that came about
00:11:35
afterwards and how much that affected me when you know I had all these feelings of inadequacy and you know not being
00:11:41
able to to do what I used to be able to do and constantly comparing and and just
00:11:45
how that that can have a really negative effect um on us mentally and so yeah you know I was sort of a bit like
00:11:53
oh well mum's gonna read this book so um but she knows me you know I lived at
00:11:58
home with her she heard the girl sneaking out in the morning and things like that and so you know it is what it
00:12:03
is and and look if people get to the end of the book and they still judge me negatively then that that's that's fine
00:12:09
that's on them I I don't think there'll be many people that will I hope they you
00:12:13
know see the growth that was made and understand the reasoning for putting it in there and I think especially young
00:12:19
men will be able to learn a few things around the effect that having too much importance on sex how detrimental that
00:12:29
can be later in life especially when getting into relationships and stuff so one thing no one can um accuse you of
00:12:34
not being as authentic and I I think there's something really powerful about
00:12:38
that but it is what there's one part of the book where you're seeing a girl for
00:12:41
a few months and you know you decide you're not going to see each other anymore and you have a last night
00:12:45
together then 12 hours later you're in LA with another girl picking you up and
00:12:49
then while you're with her you're messaging someone she drops you off at the airport and she
00:12:58
asks you for petrol money which seems kind of rude but I was really going she knows that you've been messaging some
00:13:04
other girl oh she might have I don't really know she knew it was just a flyby
00:13:08
visit it's just one of those things um I uh you know and the other girl I was
00:13:13
messaging was like one that I really wanted you know and it it was just it was one of these things that like
00:13:19
I don't know it's it's just part of like when I was traveling the us as well like
00:13:25
it was something like obviously I enjoyed like meeting women and things like that but you know you fly in you
00:13:31
get someone pick you up and you can like you know somewhere to somewhere to crash
00:13:35
like I was Balling on a budget over there like I I really um didn't have the money to go and pay for
00:13:42
hotels and all the stuff I had to you know save as much as I could and not that I was like using sleeping with
00:13:49
women to for accommodation it was just it wasn't it wasn't to that extent but
00:13:54
it was a bonus and it was um you know and and I just enjoyed living the life and and kind of
00:14:01
um taking every opportunity I could and it's just how it was that was probably
00:14:05
one big surprise for me so um you were a very very successful wakeboarder like um
00:14:10
what would your world ranking be would you say uh top 20 top 10 would have been in the top 20 most years on the pro tour
00:14:17
problem with that is you know being a niche sport like unless you're in the top 10 you're not even making money yeah
00:14:22
that's the thing there's no money you're writing off your credit card totally
00:14:25
that was also part of my situation in the sport I most of the the guys I was competing against are
00:14:34
like rich kids with mum and dad paying the bill yeah sure they live on a lake in
00:14:39
Florida they don't have to worry about anything but training whereas I was having a you know think about where my
00:14:46
next meal was coming from sometimes and there's even a couple of moments you
00:14:49
would have read you know when I got second at Worlds in South Korea and then got drug tested and lost my
00:14:56
medal and I lost thirty thousand dollars in funding which that was my leg up that
00:15:01
was exactly what I needed but I [ __ ] that up but yeah that was just that was just my journey it was uh
00:15:08
it was a it was a muscle man another hard journey you know yeah so and then so after 290 pages of um your life
00:15:16
pre-accident which is like completely a complete 180 to how your life is now you
00:15:21
talk about the time in hospital [ __ ] that sounds awful I I had covert earlier this year and I had one sleep this night
00:15:27
where I couldn't swallow you you were living that life for like a month six weeks yeah I had a month of being on a
00:15:31
ventilator and so you can't swallow you can't eat you can't drink everything's
00:15:35
going through a feeding tube up through your nose and yeah I was being on a ventilator you have a tube going down
00:15:41
into my lungs I had pneumonia I had yeah loads of issues my heart stopped once I pretty much died in front of my
00:15:48
mum it was like just the most hellish situation you know there were some incredible nurses and people that I met
00:15:55
that really helped me through that time and really just made it a little less unpleasant
00:16:01
there were some nurses where I just was like I don't want you in my room um you know ones that come in and say
00:16:08
okay I can't speak but it doesn't mean I'm deaf you don't need to speak to me
00:16:11
like I can't hear you or like I'm a child or whatever and um but yeah that was that was pretty
00:16:18
sure um you know at times when I was in that situation I didn't even want to continue
00:16:24
living really I was just like didn't want to didn't want to go through it I
00:16:29
knew the better I had ahead of me um and it was all just future-based fears that worried about what life would be
00:16:36
like as a quadriplegic and couldn't accept it and um had all these fears around you know
00:16:43
being miserable and life not being worth living and and so yeah it was just amazing to have the
00:16:49
community and wakewood Community my family and friends and stuff that really helped me turn that around and fight so
00:16:56
so from from where you're sitting now to we were lying then but with those with
00:17:00
those fears unfounded or um I mean some of them were warranted but it wasn't you know I just thought
00:17:08
that there would be no possibility there'd be no fun there'd be no um Adventure
00:17:15
um I didn't think any woman would want me and so yeah a lot of those I'll proved
00:17:20
wrong um I was very surprised to have like you know beautiful woman fall in love with
00:17:26
me after my accent who didn't know me beforehand I was like geez and I was you
00:17:31
know as you would have read I was in a pretty confused and and um just scattered sort of situation at
00:17:38
that point and you know screwed a few things up um but that was just me kind of fumbling
00:17:45
and failing I think that's actually the name of the chapter um you know my wife I said the one where
00:17:50
you've got a couple of girls on the go one that you knew pre-accident and one
00:17:54
that you met post accident yeah and I just I I was already in love with the girl I knew before and but then I met
00:18:00
this incredible woman afterwards and I was sort of like you know it was like I was already trying to get the first one
00:18:07
back and then I met the new one didn't realize I didn't even think she'd be
00:18:11
into me she falls for me and I was like whoa I'm kind of like which way do I go
00:18:15
here and and then you know um I've kind of felt like I've almost put some fears of my future on to them
00:18:23
like and and kind of almost made like the new girl was my fears of the future and
00:18:30
and the the girl that I knew before like it was my comfort in the past and what I
00:18:35
knew and what I wanted back so yeah I just kind of like didn't know what to do
00:18:39
in that point it was very confusing they're both incredible women but still I'm still in my life still friends and
00:18:45
and just great people so um yeah it was just a lot to be scared of at the beginning
00:18:51
and anyone would be frightened in that situation and I just um yeah just had to fight for a while I had to have physical
00:18:59
rehab to focus on to to get me through it and um that was sort of the turning point and
00:19:06
I had to change my mindset and there was a lot I learned from Susie yeah I'm
00:19:11
going through that at the moment yeah we'll get to Susie I want to learn more
00:19:14
about her what an incredible woman but one thing just an observation so I went to your book launch last weekend and uh
00:19:22
there are a lot of beautiful women in the room and her being halfway through your book at that point I was looking
00:19:26
around trying to like put faces and names and things but I thought that Officer says a lot about you and the way
00:19:34
you respected or treated or ended relationships with women that so many of them were in the room yeah yeah I mean
00:19:39
they're all you know the majority of them are people I've stayed in contact
00:19:43
with and remain friends with um and as I think I even write it in the book at my my birthday after my accident
00:19:50
it's like it wouldn't be a a b-rad party without auckland's finest um oh so that was at the Cavalier which
00:19:57
is um about like 400 meters from where we're sitting now and you had like a like a moment of sadness wash over you
00:20:02
where you realize that these girls that once look looked at you like with sort of you know thirsty afis we're now
00:20:08
looking at you with eyes of petty do you think that was actually how they were looking at you or in hindsight is that
00:20:13
your internal perception I think most of it was the internal perception but then
00:20:18
there's also the reality of my situation you know it isn't something that women
00:20:23
are you know or it might be something that would deter women um you know it's not something anyone
00:20:28
thinks of when they're growing up is you know you you picture the white picket
00:20:33
fence and the family and everything being perfect which it never really turns out to be there's always
00:20:39
challenges there's always things that are different to the way we plan but um yeah I I'm I'm
00:20:46
completely accepting of the fact that I I know that my situation isn't what most
00:20:51
people would choose and choosing someone and getting into a relationship with and
00:20:56
saying that you know there are as I said there have been women who see past the chair and they see you know see me for
00:21:02
who I am and and are happy to come along for the ride and learn about the challenges and figure out new ways of
00:21:10
doing things and um so yeah I think there's a bit of both at that party I'd say like you know the
00:21:16
eyes of Desire probably weren't there anymore um you know they're probably still
00:21:21
a bit of respect and a bit of you know looking at me with admiration of being able to get through what I've been
00:21:27
through but yeah I'd say things probably changed a bit there in terms of the way
00:21:31
I was seen but that was just for me I needed to learn and and grow my own confidence again and
00:21:38
learn to love myself again in order to feel worthy and feel loved I had a a maid of my Kerry Suter on the
00:21:46
the show earlier this earlier this year um so he was big in the running community and he went from a mountain
00:21:51
bike ride in February this year in Rotorua and ended up in a similar situation to you and he said when he he
00:21:56
was in the spinal unit but very early on but they basically told him that there's
00:22:01
no hope like there's there's no [ __ ] hope you're not getting your legs back
00:22:04
you're not walking again you're not running again get used to that idea you
00:22:09
I followed you on Instagram you um you rehabbed [ __ ] hard for years afterwards like every day on Instagram
00:22:15
you'd be like grinding away in the gym were you given the same sort of speech
00:22:18
that he was like there's there's no hope or is they just growing stubbornness I
00:22:22
guess or no I was told um no chance of walking again one to two percent chance of getting up on function so this was
00:22:28
just your Defiance like yeah it was like well you don't know me you don't know
00:22:32
how hard I'm willing to work you don't know how determined I am and and you
00:22:36
know one to two percent like I've I've been up against those it's odds my whole
00:22:41
career like in terms of the tricks I was trying I was some you know random kid from New Zealand who was barely even
00:22:46
sponsored land the fourth fourth 1080 in the world so um you know and and putting myself up
00:22:52
there with the biggest names and so that was my mentality I was just like well I'm just gonna fight I'm gonna do what I
00:22:59
can to get that back and yeah I remember obviously hearing about Carrie's accidents and I spoke with him and his
00:23:05
partner um while I was in the spiral unit yeah yeah um yeah so that was you know that's something I try to do as
00:23:12
well as if I can in any way help and I know how scary those first weeks and months and stuff are in the
00:23:19
spinal units and so yeah I try to help out in any way I can and just chat to them about like my journey and and what
00:23:27
I've been through and been how to accomplish and because I you know I never want to go in and go hey this is
00:23:32
how your life's going to be because it's just not true I can't tell anyone that
00:23:36
um and that's 100 what I didn't want when I had my injury I was like I don't
00:23:40
want someone in a wheelchair coming in and tell me what my life's going to be
00:23:43
like but so that's how I try to approach it just openly and just have a good chat
00:23:48
and um it's definitely a scary and daunting time in the spinal unit but there's progress to be made and and it
00:23:55
doesn't always have to be in the way that we think it's going to be I I thought my progress was going to be in
00:24:00
physical and it wasn't and yeah I just had to make that shift just getting the sweats a little bit
00:24:07
it's getting a bit of a sweat can you just check my bag see if it's draining
00:24:10
it is is there much in it completely full I can check the fan on if you want no it's not a type of thing it's gorgeous
00:24:18
my body's response yeah all good we'll see how that goes for a little while
00:24:25
um all right we just had a break then just to wipe the sweat off your brow and change your catheter and I'll tell you
00:24:32
what's while um your caregiver was doing that I I I've had a bit of a cough and I
00:24:36
managed to cough myself and I just went for a piss myself and after speaking with you it just reminds me of those
00:24:42
little things that we just do automatically as humans and you take for granted and it makes me appreciate
00:24:48
um how lucky I am to better do all that yeah like I can't even cough really if I
00:24:52
you know that's one thing if I get a chest infection or if I got covered like
00:24:56
it's you know I'm at a pretty decent risk like I've got great you know great
00:25:00
respiratory system I can hold my breath for a long time I got good lungs but I don't have the ab strength like cough
00:25:06
and you know push um to push a good cough out so yeah it's just it's part of
00:25:12
it you know catheters and recently I had to get a colostomy bag which was something I wanted to avoid at all costs
00:25:17
but was that no one wants a bag you know the poo on the outside it's like it's
00:25:22
just my main fears around it were is it going to limit me from activities and Adventure like freediving and things
00:25:31
like that and the second one was around intimacy which again you know I've already got a catheter that sort of
00:25:36
comes out from below my belly button and it's just one of those things that's
00:25:40
just kind of mentally just didn't want to kind of have to end up with and I think like you know I really like to
00:25:46
approach things with as much realism as possible and kind of being realistic about knowing that someone in a
00:25:54
wheelchair isn't the first kind of most attractive thing that someone's going to go for but like if
00:26:00
I've accepted that from from the beginning and if I'm going out and I'm
00:26:03
like considering approaching someone you know like talking to women and things like that if
00:26:10
I go out out into that situation accepting that I know rejection is a high possibility
00:26:17
um if you accept that from the beginning then it's way less daunting um even if you like as a if you do get
00:26:24
rejected a lot of the time you're like ah it wasn't as bad as what I thought
00:26:28
and built it up to be and then you know obviously there's the other side where
00:26:32
you don't but um don't get it rejected you end up chatting with someone and you
00:26:37
know you just never know what people are open to and at the end of the day if I don't put myself out there then I'm not
00:26:42
going to have that opportunity so it's his social media and aspects like that
00:26:48
made it easier and the respect that I suppose you can meet someone not fully like put your cards on the table and
00:26:53
then if they're into you they can message you the next day um I've found like with social media
00:26:57
that mainly the girls that are interested in and suffer overseas right I feel like there's that little bit of a
00:27:02
barrier like a buffer where it's like the complete reality of my situation isn't there
00:27:09
um you know it's not front and center that they can just have a bit of fun flirty time yeah and they're getting to
00:27:13
know like just me and my personality not everything and all the challenges I don't know if that's really a good
00:27:20
thing or not it could be you know it could be that stepping stone toward meeting someone and
00:27:25
um you know I haven't haven't gone into dating apps or anything like that
00:27:29
um the the last few girlfriends and relationships have been in um have been you know very authentic
00:27:36
meetings and um you know you meet them out and about at events or yeah out in public so um
00:27:45
I you look I'll be honest there's been a bit of a dry a dry spell lately and um
00:27:50
that's just reality obviously through covert times and things like that the DMS are open
00:27:56
but no it's um it's just it is what it is it's a big change from how things
00:28:01
were before but you know it's just I've changed my my focus on what's important
00:28:06
as well and I know that you know the the right one will come along and you know I
00:28:11
just I I don't go into those situations like scared of if it'll work or if it won't and trying
00:28:19
to have faith that the thing that will work or the the right one will come along
00:28:24
and if we try and fail that's just part of the journey and getting there so when
00:28:30
we when we spoke at the beginning of this year we sort of we sort of touched upon this but I I feel like you know it
00:28:35
was sort of delicately approached but now that I've read the book I feel like
00:28:38
it's it's it's all out there so you can you can still get an erection but it's
00:28:42
not it's not thought based so it's not activated by your brain yeah so if
00:28:47
someone brushes past you you could you could get bowed up well you've got no
00:28:51
you've got no sort of feeling to speak of no direct feeling I mean what I describe it in the book is like two
00:28:57
percent of what I used to feel like there is something there's a tiny bit of
00:29:01
feeling there um but yeah I can basically I can start but I can't finish if you put it that
00:29:06
way and so it's like um but yeah thought and visuals don't um the the message doesn't get through
00:29:15
there I mean there might be some you know but it's more at the end of the day it could you know
00:29:22
I'm probably more likely to get a you know to get it up if someone's trying to you know position my
00:29:29
underwear right and accidentally brush past it could be a man it could be a female it doesn't matter uh my body
00:29:34
doesn't make any distinguish between those um you know versus like there could be
00:29:40
some beautiful woman dancing in front of me naked and it's not going to get me
00:29:43
but up so it's it's just a um yeah just part of the the learnings of all the
00:29:49
different things that my injury um has and brings to my my life so have you not had an orgasm since the accident
00:29:57
no that's going to be over eight years and counting it's gonna be a just Nami
00:30:01
eventually not not a wet dream no nothing um I mean there's you know times I've
00:30:06
seen like this you know there's a little bit of um pre stuff coming you know
00:30:10
going on but like but the doctors said basically there's a possibility of getting there of of being able to have
00:30:16
an orgasm um but it's um the way I view it's one of those things is you've got to try to to get there and
00:30:26
um you know we've tried and it's just it's one of those things that's you
00:30:31
never know like the doctors say maybe it's like 50 50 if you if I'll be able
00:30:34
to or not so I don't know on what side of that I'll land but I'm not scared to
00:30:37
try so when you're when you're lying there and a girl hops on does it feel
00:30:42
nice physically or is it just like a nice nice mental thing because you know you're being intimate with someone I
00:30:47
think that that two percent of feeling is is actual physical feeling like it's
00:30:52
as I said before I be you know I'm paying all the time over these nerve pains and everything so everything below
00:30:57
my net level of injury which is sort of a line across my chest just above nipple
00:31:02
line um everything below that constantly feels negative you know it's it's pain it's unpleasant so that's kind
00:31:11
of one of the only times I ever feel anything Pleasant below the level of injury and it's very minor it's very
00:31:17
subtle but it's something but then you know the visual as well and just the experience and that was something that
00:31:22
you know as you will have read I I really had to mentally overcome that comparison of what it used to be
00:31:28
before focusing constantly on what I can't do I can't reach up and touch and
00:31:33
feel and you know and move around positions and all that sort of stuff which was that's what sex was for me
00:31:39
before and that's what it was programmed into my mind as so it felt like less it
00:31:45
felt like it wasn't something I was able to enjoy at the beginning because I was
00:31:50
constantly battling these thoughts in my head even though what was happening in front of me and on top of me was
00:31:56
beautiful and something that I was really um obviously happy with and but yeah it's just that kind of mental
00:32:02
struggle that I had to get over for a while there and it became more about like rather than focusing on what I
00:32:07
can't do it's about looking at what I can do being grateful for what I have
00:32:11
and what I what I'm able to do and um so it's the more you direct your intention
00:32:17
and your focus onto the positive um I think just yeah puts us in a positive mindset and lets us enjoy those
00:32:25
things as opposed to comparing it against like something else you've done in the past
00:32:29
and we can all do that you know like if you even if you're out on a hike and
00:32:35
it's like things aren't quite going as great as they were if you're constantly
00:32:38
focusing on the best hike you've ever had and most fun you've ever had in that adventure
00:32:43
and going oh this isn't that this isn't you know it's just it puts a negative
00:32:47
spin on things rather than focusing on the moment yeah there's a saying I really like that um the comparison is
00:32:53
the theft of joy and it's so true so true with all aspects do you want to be
00:32:57
a dad one day around being a father there's fears around that there's hurdles and and things that like people
00:33:04
have done it before and that's why I'm like okay you know I can I can do that
00:33:08
I've gone through so many other challenges and what do you mean fears and hurdles what are you having a child
00:33:13
you can't even hold in your arms yeah you know like not being able to physically like teach them things and
00:33:19
play catch and teach them to skateboard and all these things that I was like I can't
00:33:24
do this like and that's what a father is supposed to be but then again that was
00:33:30
kind of what Susie and I dug into and and belief systems is what is a father well some people have great fathers some
00:33:37
people have shitty fathers some people don't have a father at all that's in
00:33:40
their life so I'm just comparing things with how my life was and my upbringing was and how
00:33:46
my dad was in my life and you know there are so many women out there that are raising a child on their own you know
00:33:52
and and to be able to be a pillar of support and you know to to be able to be a part of that but maybe not be
00:34:01
exactly what my father was to me in terms of a lot of those things you know it's just kind of a a mental hurdle that
00:34:08
I need to overcome and I know that like even the learnings of my book don't project your thoughts and fears too far
00:34:15
forward because we don't know what that situation is actually going to be until
00:34:19
you're in it that's just all that is is just fear so yeah that's that's
00:34:23
something that I'm you know I'm Keen to have and um but you never know like obviously I I
00:34:29
thought my life was going to work out the way everyone does and you think you're gonna
00:34:34
find a partner and have kids together but I mean how many people end up with a partner who's already got
00:34:39
a child and you end up being like a stepfather and you know like that's just
00:34:43
that's just as normal as what we all picture as the perfect happy family so it's just a switch in in belief systems
00:34:51
in the way we approach life and just have to be open to different possibilities and things yeah working
00:34:58
out in a different way to what we might think they will working out the way they're supposed to work out yeah well
00:35:03
yeah curio I mentioned before her head on has um as part of Ali like she's pregnant at the moment yeah I mean he
00:35:09
was saying that the morning of the accident she was going out for a Lake Swim he was going out for a mountain
00:35:12
bike ride so she was in the first trimester at the time he he burst into tears during our chat just saying
00:35:18
basically what you said like he's not gonna be able to hold his kid um there's he doesn't know what his life
00:35:23
expectancy is like yeah all these things it was um broke my heart yeah and it is
00:35:28
it's it's scary and it's um it's something that you know is is I think
00:35:33
even with anyone that I'd get into a relationship with if it's something that
00:35:38
they want and they'd probably have these ideas and thoughts and fears around it
00:35:42
as well so you know I think the main thing is just being open to seeing what life throws at us and and knowing that
00:35:49
you know even before saying like what life is supposed to be or what is supposed like what that's just a figment
00:35:56
of our imagination it's it's these beliefs and ideas that have kind of been ingrained into us from when we're
00:36:04
young and so many of those aren't entirely valid you know so I mean so much of it's around
00:36:10
body image and what we should look like we're humans we're all we come in all
00:36:16
shapes and sizes and forms and I you know I'm kind of trying to embrace the idea that there is no should and there
00:36:24
is no supposed to be like this just what we're building up in our mind and it's
00:36:28
it's just what is like that's the the only reality the only truth is here and
00:36:34
now and what is everything else outside of that is just the stories that our minds like to tell us it's amazing how
00:36:42
how our minds like to do that and they they sway from the present the moments away from reality so much which you know
00:36:50
there's there's some positives to that in terms of being creative and you know
00:36:55
progressing certain Technologies and this and that if you're not a dreamer you can't dream up these ideas and
00:37:00
things but you know a lot of the time we really need to pull things back into focus into the present and and just yeah
00:37:07
and try not to let our emotions kind of go too far forward into the future or back into the past yeah that feels like
00:37:14
enthusiasm it seems like you've got a lot from a lot from here we'll get into
00:37:18
it first of all I want to well another thing Kerry said to me just while I'm
00:37:21
thinking of it so when I saw him he was like two to three months into into his journey and a chair
00:37:26
um so it's very early days and his parting message for something like any any day where you can wake up in the
00:37:31
morning and evacuate your own Bells is a good day now you've um your years and
00:37:37
years down the track now you try talk about this process in the book so what does an average day look like for you
00:37:42
from start to finish so well it's it's changed a bit now and you know there's
00:37:46
stuff I talk about in the book like when I went back to the spinal unit with the
00:37:49
pains that I was dealing with the high blood pressure and everything from my morning bowel care routine which
00:37:54
involved you know basically getting turned on my side have a suppository put up my butt and you know you kind of wait
00:38:01
and let it do its thing but then part of it you know it doesn't always like evacuate
00:38:05
your bowels completely and I needed a caregiver to like glove up put some lube on their finger digital yeah it's quite
00:38:12
actually quite funny and it makes like some digital thing and you didn't you
00:38:16
thought it was something to do with technology you know and then the the doctor you know the nurse like waves his
00:38:21
fingers around like that he's like digits um and so yeah I had to overcome that
00:38:28
that was pretty daunting um and but it became a part of my everyday life to have my caregivers
00:38:33
helping me evacuate my bowels and so how long does it take so they put the suppositories up and then so so just
00:38:39
wait like first initially you you put the suppository in and you get up into your into your
00:38:45
shower commode chair which has a hole underneath it you can position that over the toilet and you sit there and you
00:38:51
wait for things to to fall out I end up going through some issues end up with hemorrhoids and some bleeding and some
00:38:57
other other issues going on so I had to go back to doing my bowel cures in bed which another was another hurdle I'm
00:39:02
like [ __ ] in the bed every morning but obviously you put down uh plastic sheets
00:39:07
yeah all the stuff you need and um keep it all clean but so I had to go back to that and then went back to the spinal
00:39:13
unit because my you know I end up with autonomic dysreflexia from that like it's uh my body telling me that
00:39:19
something's not right it shoots my blood pressure up it's pretty much my my body
00:39:24
feeling pain that I can't feel um and it the signal is putting my blood pressure up so I get the sweats which is
00:39:31
why we had to pause before I had a little bit of a sweat going and then yeah my blood pressure was
00:39:36
getting to the point I was almost getting like 200 over 100 every every morning and it's like verging on
00:39:42
um you know risking having a stroke so I went back to the spinal unit and they I
00:39:48
thought they were going to really address the problem but they sent me home with a patch that I put on my arm
00:39:52
which helped keep my blood pressure down but then yeah so that kind of led to like I'm dealing with the these issues
00:39:58
and we don't really know what it is um but then since the book's finished
00:40:02
quarter of the way through last year started getting more pains again just from sitting in my chair and it wasn't
00:40:07
until the start of the year that I um we diagnosed it and so it turns out to be a
00:40:12
what's called a perianal fistula I mean you don't like to say the word anal
00:40:16
fistula because two words back to back doesn't really sound you know it paints
00:40:21
a different picture but yeah it's a it's an issue that um it's basically an infection that burrows
00:40:27
another tunnel that is not supposed to be there and it ends up full of infection and just nastiness and so you
00:40:34
had to deal with that had surgeries um this year I've had two so far I've
00:40:37
got one more to go and it's just part of it and part of that surgery was to get a colostomy bag so I no longer
00:40:43
have to go through the around about two hours every morning it took wow that I'd
00:40:47
be just sweating and uncomfortable and I'd distract myself I'd have my phone in
00:40:52
front of me and be on social media or doing whatever but so no getting a costume bag as I said it was something I
00:40:59
didn't want but it has made things a lot easier in that sense I you know this is
00:41:03
how I was able to get up early this morning and go and do a radio interview and then come here and it means I don't
00:41:09
have to go through those two hours every morning okay yes I've got a bag hanging
00:41:13
out the side of my stomach that I poo into but and you know it hasn't been the
00:41:16
smoothest process and pain and discomfort that comes along with it but I'm just trying to like let my body
00:41:24
figure things out hopefully you know they do say it can take a couple of months for for it to kind of settle into
00:41:29
a routine but yeah it's just it's just changes and you know it's the lesser of two evils I guess you know
00:41:36
it's kind of uh it's given me my mornings back and you know no longer have to get a finger
00:41:41
up the butt to help me poo every morning and how long does it take to get used to
00:41:46
that like uh you know you've been going through this stuff for seven years now or whatever
00:41:51
like when when when does it become your new sort of normal so you're just playing on your phone and it doesn't
00:41:56
even become normal I mean it comes it becomes normal but that doesn't mean I
00:42:00
like it doesn't mean I've completely accepted it and everything but yeah it
00:42:04
doesn't actually take that long um for things to kind of just become normal obviously at the very beginning I
00:42:10
resisted all of that I didn't want any of that happening I was like get your
00:42:13
finger away from me like um and I you know you would have read the funny part when I'm in the spinal
00:42:20
unit and the guy walks in to come in wow some feeling not not fulfilling yeah and that's
00:42:35
that's what I you know the one thing I as like the feeling I have below my injury I get to feel all the negative
00:42:40
stuff all the pain and everything not a lot of the good stuff and that's kind of just part of it it's this injury
00:42:46
I guess yeah so Susie who's who's Susie she's a friend of your mums so you knew
00:42:51
her pre-accident yeah so mum used to go to her pilates studio which is sooner Pilates over on bearish Point Road on
00:42:57
the shore and um and I started going along just you know with my physical conditioning
00:43:02
with other injuries I'd had my knee and my shoulder surgery and just getting
00:43:06
core strength up and um yeah I enjoyed it and she used to like joke around about like you know she'd let me come
00:43:13
for free and like go to the morning classes and she'd joke about me being you know hot Brad that would be there
00:43:18
for kind of eye candy for the young mums that were coming after dropping the kids
00:43:22
off um but no we we had a great relationship in in terms of like she would just help
00:43:27
me through my injuries and and then yeah she came along after the accident came and saw me in the spinal unit and just
00:43:34
became this kind of real pillar of support for me and um just was a game changer in terms of
00:43:39
my recovery my mental recovery and a lot of the um the issues I was facing and come and sit with me once a week and we
00:43:47
just talk about what needed to be talked about and so that chapter I think it's
00:43:51
called Mondays with Susie which is like a play on the Tuesdays With Maury but yeah which was one of my favorite books
00:43:56
yeah so is she like a trained like psychologist or psychotherapist or anything or just a wise woman oh so
00:44:03
she's a kinesiologist which is more around like the connection between the body and the organs and the emotional
00:44:11
impact that the body can have on that and if I don't know barely anything about it
00:44:16
but um we were doing some Kinesiology stuff but she's also been through her own life challenges
00:44:23
um and things you know stuff that I put in the book where she revealed to me that she had like lost Twins and
00:44:28
childbirth there I mean that's got to be one of the hardest things for for a
00:44:32
woman and mother to go through so that was kind of what helped me open up to her and okay she's been through
00:44:38
some [ __ ] but she's just very wise and has an interesting view on on the world
00:44:44
that yeah just she was able to really help me dig past the the belief systems that surface
00:44:52
stuff that I'd learned and that I really felt was true and and 100 like a part of
00:44:58
what life is but there's so many of these things you can dig past that surface belief and really get down to
00:45:06
the nitty-gritty of what it actually means and what it is and and the reality of things and so yeah she helped me with
00:45:12
that and we just I think that was the most challenging part of actually writing in the book was crafting those
00:45:18
learnings and those conversations because there's a lot of dialogue there and I had to just kind of take a lot of
00:45:23
that from memory and a couple of recordings that I had from our sessions and so yeah I enjoyed writing all that
00:45:30
stuff but it was really challenging to to put it into words and come up with you know the right analogies that we
00:45:36
used and you know talking about currency and how we spend our currency on the things in our life that um you know and
00:45:44
sometimes like with me my injury changed the currency and I was trying to spend the old currency on on the same things
00:45:52
that I used to where everything had changed so yeah she was really good at putting these analogies forward and
00:45:57
these different comparisons and ways to to look at things and um and it just really helped me grasp the concepts that
00:46:05
she was trying to put forward and it's sort of that I wanted my book to be kind
00:46:09
of a stepping stone and and people coming along the journey toward that sort of Enlightenment if you want to
00:46:15
call it that rather than some of these real gurui self-help books that uh quite a leap to get to like sort of your
00:46:24
Eckhart Tolle type books which are you know the Power of Now They explore a lot of the same Concepts but it can be a bit
00:46:30
of a leap mentally to get to that yeah for sure um yeah I hope people kind of enjoy that
00:46:35
journey and and pick up on the learnings along the way yeah sort of find yourself
00:46:39
now because um there's a lot of talk in the book about um fomo the fear of missing out do you
00:46:44
find you still have those thoughts now because that's human nature but when you
00:46:48
have those thoughts the lessons from Susie you sort of they immediately sort of exactly pull you back and that's with
00:46:55
everything every emotion it doesn't there's nothing that I've been able to
00:46:59
do to completely wipe those emotions from my life those feelings it's more just having the tools and the
00:47:05
understanding to to know how to approach them like fomo you know it's a fear of
00:47:10
missing out it's it's and again it's it's basically putting myself mentally
00:47:14
into somewhere that I'm not somewhere outside of now outside of the prison because you know if you think of Here
00:47:21
and Now as the two realities fear of missing out there could be something that's happening now but it's
00:47:26
not here with me it's somewhere else so I'm just projecting my thoughts into
00:47:30
what I think that moment is going to be and what I'm missing out on but the reality is if we're completely present
00:47:36
you can't miss out you know because if you think that every moment we have in
00:47:41
life that we experience we have the opportunity to learn something from whether it's perceived as positive or
00:47:47
negative at the time we don't know what it's going to lead to um you know the most negative thing that
00:47:53
happens to us could lead to the best thing ever that may not have come if that if that negative thing didn't
00:47:58
happen so you know as I said before our minds like to wander outside of reality a little bit and I think it's really
00:48:05
just about having those little reminders there like I have this thing you know if
00:48:09
I ever feel jealous or if I feel firmer or if I feel inadequate there's like a
00:48:14
little reminder like a little notification that goes ping in my mind and I'm like you know what this is like
00:48:19
you've done the you know the work you know that if you're feeling jealous you
00:48:25
know that you can steer your intention in your and your mentality toward how you want to feel like a rather than
00:48:30
feeling jealous toward a friend for something that they got that I didn't it's about being stoked for that friend
00:48:37
for their success or whatever that might be so yeah it's um it's just about having those tools there
00:48:44
to to grab onto when we need them and um and that's again what I hope people
00:48:49
will take from this book and you still see her now yep it's not every week um could be maybe once once a month once
00:48:57
every two weeks it's more just if and when I need it if I feel like I need a
00:49:00
chat if I feel like you know and she's also um you know she's she's learning and growing and
00:49:07
um taking her sort of Kinesiology um studies further and she's learning new things that she can do and apply to
00:49:15
my body and so she'll come around sometimes go oh I've got this new thing
00:49:19
I want to try I'm like oh I'll be your test dummy or whatever it is yeah um so
00:49:23
now we have a great relationship and catch up quite often so yeah um there's
00:49:28
another thing in the same sort of chapter a quote from your dad where he goes nothing has any meaning but the
00:49:32
meaning we give it nothing has any meaning but the meaning what does that mean exactly oh I mean it's just more
00:49:37
like what we as Society or we as individuals believe in life and the importance we put on things is purely
00:49:46
just what we have decided and you know and if you think of like I mean anything really in life it's just
00:49:56
about the the belief and the meaning that we give things and we we have the ability to adapt that
00:50:02
and change that in our minds yeah it's it's interesting um digging into that stuff and realizing
00:50:08
that yeah that we have the ability to adjust our beliefs and adjust the meaning we put on
00:50:15
on things the importance that we put on certain things if you had to pick one what are you more
00:50:21
proud of that that trick that ultimately put you in the chair or this book it would have to be the book yeah um
00:50:31
and I think it's more because of what I had to go through to to finish it the
00:50:36
amount of work that went into it like sure it was what 15 years of learning to wakeboard and building up and and
00:50:43
learning new tricks and everything along the way um but the commitment that it took and the the
00:50:51
amount of work and the amount of effort and the amount of Challenge and struggle and just like I
00:50:57
didn't want to do it most days I was like I I'm a procrastinator I'm not
00:51:02
great at like putting my time into into that sort of thing so the fact that I just I grinded my way through it all it
00:51:10
took me six years it just it's something it's the the one thing that I've put the most amount of work
00:51:16
into besides wakeboarding but wakeboarding was something that I enjoyed every moment of it whereas this I didn't
00:51:24
um writing the book there were moments of that I enjoyed oh yeah I like how that part turned out and or it was good
00:51:30
to get that off my chest but the process was challenging and it was a struggle when
00:51:35
it put me in into you know um to a bit of depression at times and um yeah so no definitely more proud of yeah
00:51:44
of the book and um please you said that you you've crafted a masterpiece here
00:51:48
and it's um have you seen the movie Shawshank Redemption I have it's almost
00:51:52
like these it kind of reminds me of Andy Dufresne like you're burrowing his way
00:51:56
out of the jail with like a rock hammer or whatever but the way that you've done
00:52:00
this it's just and I'm sure you've just had people saying this over and over
00:52:04
again in media interviews the last couple of weeks it's mind-blowing I love that comparison The Rock Cameron
00:52:11
but another thing like um I've I've done my books through the same publisher and your contract's
00:52:17
probably the same as mine it's like you need to do 70 to 90 000 words so for a
00:52:22
procrastinator to get to half a million or whatever calm down that was more um more of the evidence of the fact that
00:52:29
I'm not a writer I wasn't a writer I I didn't know how to shape a book I didn't
00:52:33
know what was important to put in and what wasn't um so I just brain dumped my whole story
00:52:39
word vomit here you go and now you know the whole story like what are we putting
00:52:45
out there like what what do we Whittle it down to um and yeah it was it was amazing you
00:52:50
know and I did have some some thoughts you know around the amount of like sex content in there and the women and
00:52:55
things like that I was like oh okay like how a woman gonna receive this but my entire editing publishing team was all
00:53:02
women so you know I kind of leaned on them to know how much was was good to go in and um so that yeah they were really
00:53:11
helpful with that including this at this um yeah lady called Jenny who I imagine
00:53:15
um like clutching her pearls while reading it especially a bit about the force oh especially reading the
00:53:22
uncensored version oh God it's a stone down oh it's all been it's like a red
00:53:27
discount somewhere oh totally yeah there is but don't go searching you're not
00:53:31
gonna find it um but no it's yeah and that was kind of I was a little bit concerned about that
00:53:37
but I was like okay well if these are the people that are reading it and proofreading it and everything and
00:53:42
helping me know what to put out there then I think the the best ones to do that so yeah yeah I feel like
00:53:47
hypothetical questions are sort of a waste of time as you would learn from Susie but should we do a couple of
00:53:51
hypotheticals sure why not How would how would your life look now ahead had you not had the excellent so how old are you
00:53:56
now 35. Brad would he still be going around from house to house uh I wakeboarding I feel like
00:54:05
I don't know there are a few things in my career that I was like working toward
00:54:09
but whether they would have um you know what path I would have taken you know I was into commentary and
00:54:15
um getting into presenting and stuff around events I was also getting into the Hands-On of like setting up Cable
00:54:21
Systems and the stuff I was learning at Lake roanoke's and getting involved with
00:54:25
the company that was that was doing that and going around the US and building cable parks that was something I thought
00:54:31
I might do and maybe even build a cable Park here back in New Zealand um also as well around like
00:54:37
Maybe um with relationships I think even you know before my injury I was at the point
00:54:44
where I was like okay I kind of want to I want to be able to have a proper relationship as opposed to
00:54:51
just living the single life and you know I think that's something I would have I
00:54:55
would have found but you know you know that I I might have been might have ended up back here in New
00:55:00
Zealand broke no no real like qualifications or anything and could have ended up being a builder
00:55:07
or a tradie of some sort like I don't know I don't know what I would have
00:55:10
fallen into but um yeah it's interesting to think you know would I still be in the U.S would I be
00:55:16
back here it's hard to say really yeah yeah and if someone said to you okay if God said to
00:55:22
you because God is real you do about this in the book and I love the the headline which got you in a
00:55:29
little bit of heat with some religious you said if this is God's plan then God's a dick yeah which I thought that's
00:55:33
a perfectly fair thing yeah exactly but I had John Kuhn on the said John Cohen on the podcast and he he said he uh he
00:55:40
managed to reframe it when someone explained to him that you just replaced the word god with love exactly that was
00:55:45
sort of my view as well or it's just it's just adjusting it and knowing that
00:55:49
look that's I think if we look at being completely honest about it all the only thing that we can know for sure
00:55:57
is that we don't know what is in terms of religion and God and creation and things like that like
00:56:03
you know and so it's just about for me it was like translating yeah as you say
00:56:07
the word god For Love or connection or the universe or whatever it is that you believe God to be
00:56:14
um so yeah that was kind of there was a big Growing Experience because for me I used to like resist
00:56:19
that and want to want to debate and kind of like you know and so retaliate yeah and it was more around like being able
00:56:28
to accept the the meaning behind what people were saying like going oh you know this is
00:56:34
all God's plan or um whatever it might be and it's just their beliefs and their way of
00:56:41
trying to connect and trying to um tell me that things are going to be okay and I just had to learn that that's what
00:56:49
they were saying and that it's not like oh yeah there's this guy in this guy who
00:56:53
planned for you to break your neck and [ __ ] your life up it's still frustrating
00:56:57
to you it's frustrating to hear that I guess yeah say someone said to you okay Brad
00:57:03
you got two options I can we can we can restore your mobility and give you five more years of life we can have another
00:57:09
40 years of life as a quad what would you pack oh that's a tough one um if you'd have told me that right
00:57:19
before my accident I mean [ __ ] give me five years of Epic life of what I've
00:57:23
been living like you know all of my fears at that time around all my beliefs around
00:57:29
what it meant to be a quadriplegic it's like do you want 40 Years of misery or
00:57:33
five years of epicness that's what I would have thought at the time yeah obviously I have a different view on it
00:57:38
now so it's a tough one you know it's a hypothetical so yeah yeah I don't
00:57:44
I don't know if I could give a proper answer on that really because it you know I see it both ways and I see
00:57:52
benefit and positives in both ways and I think at the end of the day the 40 years
00:57:56
of being a wheelchair I think has a more of a positive impact on the world and other people than five
00:58:05
years of me yeah charging it as a wakeboarder yeah and that probably leads us nicely to the sum this quote uh from
00:58:12
the book where you say I don't know how I could ever be grateful for this life
00:58:15
yeah um which is funny because the latest Woman's Day headline is I am grateful for my injury which kind of a
00:58:24
misquote I'll call that clickbait um because I'm not women's magazines
00:58:30
doing clickbait I can't you know I couldn't say I'm grateful for my injury
00:58:34
I've found gratitude for things that mine you know that have happened in my life since my injury and that this
00:58:41
change in in the direction of my life has brought me so but it's a tough one
00:58:46
because you know like Susie tried to to teach me that like in order if you're grateful for
00:58:51
something now you kind of have to be grateful for everything that led you to this moment
00:58:55
um which is challenging because we have all these ups and downs and things that we wish we could have smoothed out and
00:59:00
maybe had not had happen in our lives but we don't know what effect that would
00:59:04
have had and where it would have sent us um so yeah it's just finding gratitude
00:59:09
um for yeah for the things that that we love about our lives and focusing on what is good so there is gratitude there
00:59:18
but I I don't know if I could ever say I'm grateful for the injury itself
00:59:24
um that's just a tough one to yeah to get through absolutely oh for sure um but mentally how are you today are
00:59:31
you good today yeah I mean I've still been going through some physical challenge which you know they are
00:59:36
challenging they are testing me and um but you know I'm I'm grateful for the
00:59:44
fact that I've got a book out this project that I've been working on for
00:59:46
six years I'm grateful that I'm not having to write it anymore um each day and and it's funny you know
00:59:52
people are like yeah you know leading up to the release like oh my God I can't
00:59:58
wait to read your book and at that point I'd read it three times in the last four
01:00:01
months I'm like I can't wait to not read my book but no I'm just really grateful for the
01:00:06
response and for you know like the media that have wanted to speak with me about
01:00:10
it and it's the opportunities that it's coming is bringing to me and and the
01:00:15
responses that I'm getting the the messages and people saying oh my God I can't put this book down I was up till
01:00:21
3am I had to force myself to to put it down and go to sleep and um so yeah to having that sort of feedback and it's
01:00:28
good and it's got me and you know like that that feeling of purpose I think that's what we all need to be in a good
01:00:34
place is to to feel like there's some sort of purpose yeah um and whatever that may be and I think
01:00:41
I think keeping that in in moderation or just knowing that like it doesn't have
01:00:46
to be this massive Grand purpose that is going to change the entire world like we
01:00:50
can make it as small as possible but having that something that we're working
01:00:54
toward Something That We're focused on and and passionate about this this book and you know the media around
01:01:03
it and getting it out there that's what that is for me and then on to the next
01:01:06
Journey yeah I made it some something to be to be proud of and um yeah I hope you're feeling sort of euphoric at the
01:01:11
moment um because you deserve to be yeah I mean definitely um you know my body and the
01:01:18
the pain and the discomfort is trying to like pull that away from me but but at the end of the day you know we can steer
01:01:24
Our intention and and our um our focus and for me I just like to pull that back to what I'm grateful for and and the
01:01:32
good stuff that's going on in life at the moment yeah oh one last one just before I wrap up so yeah the book
01:01:37
launched last weekend uh which was a fantastic party there was a clip you played at the end like a couple of
01:01:42
minutes of a like a documentary and I noticed um like you started you started crying at that time are they tears of
01:01:48
sadness tears of Pride watching the docker yeah I think your eyes were playing tricks on you yeah I don't think
01:01:53
I was great [Music] um now because I've seen that so many times and everything
01:01:58
um included the footage of um the uncensored footage of you um having the accident yeah and again I've seen that
01:02:05
plenty of times it doesn't affect me anymore um you know the the one part that I
01:02:10
don't know there might have been a little bit of welling up in my eyes and it's just when there's the voicemail
01:02:13
that was left on my mum's phone about the accident when that plays that always
01:02:18
gets me um and but yeah so that's kind of the next part of the journey we've got a
01:02:25
documentary project we're working on um with the amazing team at motion sickness
01:02:31
um which I think I've just been ranked like fifth in the world of like creative
01:02:35
Agency for this year it's like they do amazing stuff um you know we're most of
01:02:40
the way there with the funding we're just kind of trying to pull in the last
01:02:43
like 30 of the funding and um hopefully yeah my body plays plays ball for summer and we can
01:02:51
finish the rest of the filming and and um hopefully have another project out there this time next year another thing
01:02:58
for me to be proud of another thing for me to come chat to you about yeah is that what you need in life like things
01:03:03
to look forward to do you think I think so I think we all need something to to look forward to something to work on and
01:03:09
you know otherwise we're just kind of lingering and just floating through life
01:03:12
and it's you know it's good to have a focus and a and for me it's you know I like to do
01:03:18
big these big projects that I think will um have a positive impact on on people and the way they approach life and yeah
01:03:26
there's a quote that I like to use um which is more around just kind of living for the moment and doing what we
01:03:33
can for now and it's um never forget yesterday but always live for today because you never know what tomorrow can
01:03:40
bring or what it could take away yeah I like that yeah I like that let's play a
01:03:44
good place to end it well but if there's any single girls listening and they want
01:03:48
to slide into your DMs what are you what are you looking for what's the what's
01:03:52
the dream yeah just people who are who are open to to learning about different ways of of doing things and
01:03:59
the fact that you know my life is a bit different but it doesn't mean that it's
01:04:04
all miserable or anything like you know there's just there's some great stuff
01:04:07
going on as well so um you still get the top five inches which is the most important part eh
01:04:13
totally 100 um you know I think it's uh it's about connection and it's just about you know
01:04:19
like chatting with people and getting to know them and thing you know what what sort of ideas and mentalities and ways
01:04:28
of life can I connect and and work together just keeping myself myself open and uh
01:04:35
yeah welcoming of anyone who's who's interested and wants to chat and yeah yeah well you I think you're a
01:04:42
great catch for um the right person a nurturing person I think yeah yeah I think that's it
01:04:47
cheers hey um congrats man this book is uh it's awesome it's something to be proud of
01:04:54
and uh I can see you sort of bursting but even they got nerve issues at the moment I can see you still bursting with
01:04:59
pride and and you should be as well yes thanks for having me thanks very much for making it all the way to the end
01:05:05
there was Brad's Mailer on Runners only with dom Harvey if you like what you
01:05:09
hear maybe give it a five star rating on your podcast platform or even leave a review if you've got any feedback
01:05:15
suggestions criticism positive feedback whatever you can email me anytime you want Don harveynz gmail.com or Dom
01:05:23
Harvey NZ on Instagram thank you very much for the support thanks for listening love you guys I'll see you
01:05:29
next week