Honoured to speak at Petroc's 2017 graduation ceremony

Thanks Petroc for inviting me…… I’m honoured to be here with you all. Congratulations Class of 2017!

I’m sharing my story hoping it may be of some value as you go forward to explore and develop your career.

My story Is About Resilience

Resilience is NOT something you are born with.   Rather than letting failure or misfortune determine your career or life, you can find a way - any way, your own personal way to succeed.  To have a positive attitude, choose to say yes rather than no, take charge of your emotions to motivate yourself and be prepared to step out of your comfort zone - a bit like me now, talking to all of you!

Growing up in Berrynarbor, helping Mum & Dad run the local Post office, we all had our roles to play in our proper family business, everyone mucking in making it work. It was the 1980’s, interest rates were 14% and most of the time it felt like we were employed by the NatWest Bank!

It was tough and meant delivering papers all year round, weekly grocery boxes and serving in the shop but it introduced me to basic business principles such as:

1.     Deliver 100% what your customers want, even if it’s difficult - like driving all the way into Barnstaple to buy unusual items that we didn’t usually stock in our little post office !

2.     As in life, relationships and doing the right thing REALLY matter.

I attended Ilfracombe Comp and loved playing football.  I enjoyed school and given my instilled interest in business, I went on to enrol at North Devon College on a BTEC Business Studies course.  

The first day Mr Stanley told us in no uncertain terms that we were no longer at school.  College was different.  No one was going to keep tabs and check if we were in class or not.  If you planned to dodge then you were only wasting your own time…  My future was suddenly my responsibility.  The message from Mr Stanley was clear - you only get out of life what you put in.  I thrived on this news and embraced the freedom to think in a more creative way - the heart and mind working together - listening and trusting your gut instinct.  Everything going well, I enjoyed making new friends, playing football and my grades were good. 

One year on my left knee was aching and it didn’t get better, in fact it got really painful.  Thinking it a sports injury and struggling through a shift at The Wrey Arms I popped into A&E at Barnstaple Hospital…

Weeks later I was in the doctor’s office with the specialist informing me that they had found a bone tumour - I wasn’t quite computing, let alone grasping that he meant Cancer.  I needed to go to Birmingham Orthopaedic Hospital immediately, leave College and forget about playing football.  

Soon after, confirmation I had Osteosarcoma.  The prognosis - back in 1986 – was not good.  It amounted to a 1 in 3 chance I’d live another 5 years and a 1 in 10 to keep my leg…… Odds and chances too tough at 18.

Over the following 9 months I completed a programme of chemo, fortunately the tumour shrunk enough for surgeons to replace the affected leg with a titanium knee, femur and tibia prosthesis.  

I really didn’t know what to do or think for a while.  I mean, why had I been lucky, when most friends I had made along the way had died?  Surviving those dark days, my hair all gone, facing death daily and the near amputation of my leg….. I had changed.

I had become much stronger than before and now possessed the ability to push myself, believing that there had to be a purpose for my survival and realising there wasn’t time or energy to waste.  I understood that I had the courage to connect the heart and head.

Back to College I determined to complete my studies and prepare for final examinations.  Inevitably, student life wasn’t the same.  Weeks in, disaster struck – a 1-in-a-million chance occurrence - my new ￡250,000 bionic titanium leg snapped – metal fatigue.  I was back in Hospital for 3 months, awaiting a new leg to be made.  

Every day my brilliant lecturers visited to take me through the missed lessons. More importantly, they smuggled in the odd bacon sandwich or a beer… Now that is what I call passion for teaching! 

I completed in hospital and managed to secure top grades.  New leg fitted, the College and I collected a special award.  I think even Mr Stanley was impressed!

Thanks to Petroc, I secured a place at Uni with a second-year sponsorship to New York University too.  Eventually returning to North Devon I secured a traineeship at Bray Leino, an advertising and marketing agency in Filleigh. Falling in love with advertising it became the perfect home for my creative thinking to develop and after 7 years I became a board director. Bray Leino is now among the UK’s top agencies.

I left the company 12 months ago seeking new challenges and recently launched an Algorithm App that helps calculates the value of businesses.

At the Birmingham Orthopaedic Hospital there’s a quote on the entrance wall, which I always turn to when things are not going my way:

“Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream”

I hope you find yourself here in 30 years telling the class of 2047 your story and how you fulfilled your dreams. Thank you.