Day 292: Debuting My Built Unstoppable Speech
By the time I published yesterday’s update I was exhausted and passed out hard, getting around 5 hours of sleep. Though I aim for 7-8 hours of sleep, I was happy to have gotten at least 5 hours of sleep last night.
Today I spoke about the journey that we’ve been on since August 10th for the first time as the primary topic of my speech. It was something that I had to keep a secret for the past couple of weeks.
Besides sharing my story, I also shared a few key takeaways that I hope this journey inspires in others:
- Always stay determined. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do anything.
- Invest in your relationships and in your health.
- Don’t wait until tomorrow or next week or next month to pursue your passion(s).
It was my first test at a speech completely focused on this journey. Over the next several months it is something that I want to work on evolving and cleaning up.
I hope and plan on doing more speeches about this journey in an effort to motivate others. I have had a unique opportunity to motivate family, friends, colleagues and community. Now I want to extend it beyond that to touch others’ lives.
After speaking I received a note from my neurologist’s nurse saying that they wanted me to not miss a dose of Vimpat so they called in a refill to the local CVS.
I sprinted back over to my hotel room so that I could take the final dose of the Vimpat that I had brought with me so as to not miss the morning dose.
The rest of the day was filled with inspiration from an incredibly talented group of speakers.
So many people came up to me telling me that they were inspired from my speech but it paled in comparison to what others spoke about.
Later in the day a friend of mine gave me a ride over to CVS. After a hour of going back and forth with the epilepsy center and the pharmacist, I was finally able to buy 2 pills at full price since health insurance wouldn’t cover it until tomorrow but I needed one dose tonight.
After dealing with the CVS debacle I came back to have dinner with a small group of friends before we headed over for the evening party.
I feel so thankful that AJ Leon gave me an opportunity to debut my Built Unstoppable speech in front of the community of misfits that he brings together every year for this conference.
Not only was it an opportunity to share my story but it was also a chance for me to talk about how amazing my wife, my mother-in-law, my friends and Citrix was and continue to be.
One of the other speakers asked me to write a note in a notebook that he uses to collect inspirational quotes.
I didn’t really think of what I was writing until after I wrote it. When I read it back I realized that it crystalized what I have tried explaining to everyone when they say that they couldn’t overcome similar injuries in the same way:
Everyone is built unstoppable, whether they realize it or not.
This is my firm belief and one that I will continue to everyone that I can.