Episode #223

Maria Franzoni

00:00:29 – 00:01:21

Welcome back to The Speaker Show with me your host, Maria Franzoni. In today’s show, we will be talking about resilience and wheelchairs. The Speaker Show is brought to you by Speakers Associates, the global speaker bureau for the world’s most successful organisations, providing keynote speakers for events, conferences and summits. My guest this week is a gold medal-winning Paralympic champion and was part of the first British Paralympian team to win a gold medal in a team sport. At the age of 15, he had both of his legs and most of his fingers amputated due to blood poisoning from meningitis. In 2016, he decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with a specially adapted off-road wheelchair. However, when the wheelchair wasn’t working on the terrain, he refused to be carried and reached the summit after four days of trekking on his hands and knees.

Maria Franzoni

00:01:21 – 00:01:42

It was the first time an amputee had reached the top of Kilimanjaro without any assistance. He’s a multiple award winner, including the prestigious Short Trust Power of 100 lists as one of the top 100 most influential people in the UK with a disability. Please welcome my guest, Aaron Phipps.

Maria Franzoni

00:01:42 – 00:01:45

Thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?

Aaron Phipps

00:01:45 – 00:01:47

Very well, thank you, Maria. Very well.

Maria Franzoni

00:01:47 – 00:01:50

Super. Have you, have I fitted you in between your training?

Aaron Phipps

00:01:50 – 00:02:03

I’ve got a session booked for this afternoon, so yeah, absolutely. I’ll be back on the treadmill at the university. And the three-year cycle will feel much longer when I get on that back beast of a machine.

Maria Franzoni

00:02:03 – 00:02:24

Fantastic. Brilliant. Well, I love speaking to people who are focused on their jobs and on their work. That’s brilliant. So, listen, I know a little bit about your story, but not everybody will do. And I’d love to hear about how things started. And you haven’t always been an amputee. You weren’t born the way you are now. Tell us how that happened.

Aaron Phipps

00:02:24 – 00:02:58

Okay. So I was an able-bodied 15-year-old, and I was rushed into hospital with, well, if you look at my symptoms, it was quite scary. It was the first day back to school after the Christmas holidays. I was 15. I told my parents I didn’t feel great. I went off and got up into bed it was January. There was lots of flu around. We didn’t think anything of it. I got up and I vomited twice in the night. My dad woke me up in the morning to see how I was, and I said, I didn’t feel great to put it politely, I got to go to the toilet and I collapsed on the landing.

Aaron Phipps

00:02:58 – 00:03:37

My dad heard me fall down, ran upstairs, scooped me up, put me in my parents’ bed, and my mum saw a rash appearing on my chest. So she was asking my little sister to bring a glass because she knew the glass test for meningitis. My little sister didn’t understand she kept bringing a glass of water. Mom was saying, no, just a glass. She pressed the glass on the rash. It didn’t disappear, so they called our doctor and called an ambulance. And from my very first symptoms to life support machine was 12 hours and from the rash appearing to life support machine was just one hour. So I had, the technical term is acute respiratory and renal failure from Meningococcal Septicemia to Meningitis C.

Maria Franzoni

00:03:37 – 00:03:51

Wow, that’s scary stuff. How wonderful that your mother knew how to check for it and that they reacted so quickly and they didn’t just send you off school, you know? Oh, my goodness. So, wow, that’s incredible.

Aaron Phipps

00:03:51 – 00:04:16

On that, which probably should say, look, I don’t expect anybody listening to this to become an expert on meningitis, but I think if someone is poorly and you get that gut feeling that something is not right when I’ve met people who’ve been through similar experiences, you always get that kind of alarm about the back of your head that says something is not right. Get that person checked out. And I’m sure all the doctors would say you would rather that, you know, it was a false alarm than something like what happened to me would happen to somebody else.

Maria Franzoni

00:04:16 – 00:04:32

No, absolutely, absolutely, and the fact that they have to act so quickly. I didn’t realise that it was an hour from rash appearing to being on life support. That’s quite scary in itself. How did you get into elite sport, though from that? Because, I mean, that’s not something you would immediately think of doing.

Aaron Phipps

00:04:32 – 00:04:55

No, not so. Yeah. I spent a year in hospital. And it was a really, really tough time. I had to relearn, how to walk. She probably mentioned people listened. Actually, yes, I’m an amputee. So I’m a bilateral below knee amputee. I’m missing both of my legs below the knees and the tips of the majority of my fingers. So it means I’m rubbish at Sherrard. So I put my hand up you never know.

Aaron Phipps

00:04:55 – 00:05:31

Yes, I left hospital a year later, as kind of presented with this new situation where I used a wheelchair and I use prosthetic legs to get around. At this point, I wasn’t an athlete. I was just getting on with my life. And to be honest with you, I just fell into sport because I agree to things I shouldn’t agree to. I wanted to raise some money for the Meningitis Research Foundation. So I entered the 10-K race in my everyday wheelchair. There was 2000 runners in this race. I was the only person doing it in a wheelchair. I started at the very front. Every single runner overtook me and I came at the back. I loved it and got myself a secondhand racing wheelchair.

Aaron Phipps

00:05:31 – 00:05:40

And that led me into doing the London Marathon. I did the London Marathon twice the second time, quite fast, and that’s where my journey started with wheelchair rugby

Maria Franzoni

00:05:40 – 00:05:46

Fantastic. There must be a huge difference between a racing wheelchair and a normal wheelchair. That must have been very hard.

Aaron Phipps

00:05:46 – 00:06:12

Yeah, because of the camber of the road, you end up pushing with one arm. So you’re kind of going along. If the camber is one way you’re pushing with one arm and then you go the other way and all the races are patting me on the back, saying, Well done and overtaken me. But I literally came at the back. But it was a good learning point. I really enjoyed the race and I’ve got a fantastic photo in my house with me doing it, and it was a good starting point. But yeah, it was. I wouldn’t recommend anybody in a wheelchair to go and do something like that in an everyday wheelchair. It’s probably not a good idea.

Maria Franzoni

00:06:12 – 00:06:23

And how did you get into the wheelchair Rugby? Which is actually and tell me why people call it murderball as well? Which I think is a fabulous term Murderball. It gives you all sorts of visions. How did you get into that?

Aaron Phipps

00:06:23 – 00:07:03

Okay, so I’ll do a brief history lesson on wheelchair rugby to talk about the murderball story, and then I’ll talk about how I got into it. So it was invented in Canada in the seventies for people looking for an alternative to wheelchair basketball. At the time, that was the only team sport, and there was some quadriplegic. So quadriplegic means you’ve broken your neck up really quite high that were just too disabled to play wheelchair basketball. And that’s up quite high. They couldn’t. It’s quite a heavy ball. They couldn’t throw it up and they just couldn’t compete with. You know, if you’ve got someone who is a single leg amputee and you’re that disabled, you’re going to really struggle. So they came up with this new sport where you could crash into each other. They called it murderball.

Aaron Phipps

00:07:03 – 00:07:43

They then struggled to get corporate sponsorship for a sporting a murderball, and they couldn’t enter it into the Paralympics called Murderball, so they changed the name to Wheelchair Rugby. That is why it’s nothing like rugby. We plan a basketball court. But that’s where it came from. So they literally staffed, really, isn’t it? They couldn’t. They couldn’t enter in the Paralympics called Murderball, so they changed their name to rugby. But that’s how it started. So for me, I was at the racing track championships and I got chatting to a couple of guys who played it. And, you know, Paralympic sport doesn’t have the exposure. Back then. I’ve never seen it. And I was saying, You know, you can knock people out there wheelchair. These guys are going, Yeah, you can knock people out of their wheelchairs, wicked. You should come try it.

Aaron Phipps

00:07:43 – 00:08:21

So I went. OK, I’ll give it a go, but then I’ll be honest with you. I went home and I Googled it. I was watching these videos on YouTube of people getting smashed out of their wheelchair. I went, Oh, don’t just want to enjoy this, But I went down to try it, and the very first session I went to, this player called Manny, who played for Great Britain, came flying across the court and smashed me out my chair. I’ve never been smashed out of a wheelchair before, but I laid down on the floor. All calm and still and I went well, I want to hit you back. And it brought out a dark side of me that I didn’t know I have Maria. It turns out I love smashing people out of their wheelchair, and that’s kind of how it blew up from there. Really?

Maria Franzoni

00:08:21 – 00:08:25

Oh, my God, I love that. I love the fact that it’s nothing like rugby, but you had to call it

Maria Franzoni

00:08:25 – 00:08:41

that in order to actually make out. I did wonder why it was called rugby, it isn’t, you’re right on a bus. And I mean, I would be petrified to sort of have people coming at me, smashing me out of my wheelchair, and I’m, you know, I can get up and pick myself up much more easily. Do you have lots of injuries?

Aaron Phipps

00:08:41 – 00:09:14

Yeah, I won’t. I won’t go into too much detail on the classification system, but I’m basically the least disabled person on my team as an amputee because I got my tummy muscles I’ve got on my core. But that means it’s my role to be the big bully and kind of intimidating, you know, mess up like kind of hit other people really hard. But you know, this is elite sport. It’s not tickling competition. So if someone was going to score a point and I wanted to stop them, I will charge at them hard as far as I can, because if they fall out and land on my lap and that’s a foul on them,

Maria Franzoni

00:09:14 – 00:09:14

Wow.

Aaron Phipps

00:09:14 – 00:09:16

It’s a bit like chest with violence.

Maria Franzoni

00:09:16 – 00:09:18

Well, you haven’t told me about injuries. Have you been injured?

Aaron Phipps

00:09:18 – 00:09:41

I’m sorry. No, I didn’t, didn’t I? Know it well, and that’s my point. It’s not really me kind of injuring other people, but we won’t go into that baby. But you know I will, I will say if you look at able-bodied rugby though they’re crazy. They run into each other with their bodies. We run into each other by our wheelchairs. So it’s a wheelchairs that break more than we do. So touch wood. It’s rare that anyone would have kind of a serious injury.

Maria Franzoni

00:09:41 – 00:09:50

Okay. And so I’m sorry. I’m fascinated by this. So if you’ve got an expensive sports wheelchair, how much do they cost to replace if you do damage it?

Aaron Phipps

00:09:50 – 00:10:09

Yeah. My chair cost £4000 and I get through one a year because I twist and buckle them and crack them. I took two wheelchairs to the games. Shouldn’t have in this photo. I took two wheelchairs to the Paralympics. So people went why you’ve got two wheelchairs? And I said cause it cracks. And you know I have to buy new ones just to intimidate people. But I told you that.

Maria Franzoni

00:10:09 – 00:10:32

Oh, that’s clever. We all know now for next time. So that’s interesting. So, yeah, I’m not going to edit that out. Now, listen, you know all this violence is completely opposite to who you are because you are a big family man. And we know that. And COVID meant that you couldn’t take your family to the Paralympics. How did that affect your performance? How did that affect you, you know, as a person?

Aaron Phipps

00:10:32 – 00:11:13

Yeah. It was tough. I competed in the 2012 Paralympics, where as a team, we came fifth. So that was the end of that story. I started wheelchair rugby, and three years later, I competed in London as a kind of rookie player. I stepped down from wheelchair rugby after London because I did it all around the wrong way. Married more with elite athletes didn’t really ever work. And I went back in 2017. And the reason I went back was because I wanted to take my daughter to games. I thought, how cool would it be to get to come watch their daily compete? And you know, I didn’t think they postponed the Paralympics when COVID kicked off. I thought it happened behind closed doors. You don’t cancel the biggest sporting event in the world. You know, that happens every four years like clockwork.

Aaron Phipps

00:11:13 – 00:11:40

So when it got postponed, it was really tough to deal with as an athlete. It was also really tough that when it was going to happen again a year later, there was going to be no spectators. But I am. I still. My family supported me from home, so they were watching on the telly. My girls are watching and supporting and cheering, and, you know, I’ve got it here to come away. And when this shiny gold medal just get that in there.

Maria Franzoni

00:11:40 – 00:11:41

They can’t see that on the podcast.

Aaron Phipps

00:11:41 – 00:11:48

You can’t see on the podcast. I’m holding up the gold medal. I’m very, very proud of this. So to go all the way for them and to win this was phenomenal.

Maria Franzoni

00:11:48 – 00:12:06

Fantastic, fantastic. So, I mean, at each stage of your life so far and you’re still young, you’ve sort of had to deal with resilience. You’ve had to be resilient. Where does that come from? Where have you found this resilience?

Aaron Phipps

00:12:06 – 00:12:36

I think the common misconception is people think that when you’ve been through something like I have with meningitis and you become an amputee, that instantly makes you resilient. I don’t think that does. I think being poorly, what that did was made me very aware of my mortality, which in turn made me take opportunities like doing the wheelchair racing for charity, trying wheelchair rugby that made me take opportunities, which then taught me to be resilient because I put myself out of my comfort zone. So,

Aaron Phipps

00:12:36 – 00:12:58

you know, before London I was training around a full time job and getting up at five in the morning to be in the gym before work. And, you know, doing those kind of sessions when you’re absolutely broken, you know, and then going into a team meeting and not really knowing what my own name was. That’s when you learned to be resilient. I mean, we haven’t spoken about Kilimanjaro, but that was a charity challenge that I took on that blew up and I ended up.

Aaron Phipps

00:12:58 – 00:13:32

I’m calling on my hands and knees for a number of days to get to the Summit of Kilimanjaro. You know, that’s when you learn resilient, resilience. So I think resilience is a skill that can be learned. It’s like a muscle, you know, if you train yourself like in my sport, I go to the gym and I lift weights to make my muscles bigger. You can make yourself more resilient by putting yourself out of your comfort zone and taking on new challenges and opportunities. Really obvious. One is to take up a charity challenge. If someone out there is thinking, you know okay, we’ve been through COVID. I want to do something new. Where can I start? Take up a charity challenge as soon as you’ve been sponsored by someone you cannot back out.

Aaron Phipps

00:13:32 – 00:13:42

So I’m always teaching people up with that because they’ll say I’m thinking of taking on a charity challenge I’ll wave a tenner at them I’ve got sponsored you who you’re doing it for, and at that point. As soon as you’ve been sponsored, you have to go through a bit.

Maria Franzoni

00:13:42 – 00:13:50

I’m not sure tenner would be enough for me. We have to talk about that. I need more than that as a motivation.

Maria Franzoni

00:13:50 – 00:14:12

So a couple of things that I think actually, that’s really interesting that you know, your story or your meningitis stories saying it didn’t make you more resilient, but it made you look at things differently. I think it’s a nice parallel there with all that we’ve been through with COVID. Do you think COVID will make people look at things differently? Are there lessons, are there parallel lessons from your experience to what’s happened now for us?

Aaron Phipps

00:14:12 – 00:14:45

Yes, I think before I talk about this, I’ll just say that I’m talking about sport and I get that when I say when I refer to COVID because you know the games getting postponed. Really, that is that’s nothing compared to some of the situations that some people have been through losing loved ones, etcetera. So I get that I’m just talking about sport here, but yeah, there is. I think you know, I think people are starting to look at things very differently, aren’t they? And they’re starting to. It was such a big disruptor, wasn’t it? In the way that we just plodded along with

Aaron Phipps

00:14:45 – 00:14:59

going from A to B that actually I think now people are trying to branch out trying new things, set up new businesses, take their life in a different direction. That’s when they’re going to learn to be resilient because they’re going to do things that perhaps COVID they wouldn’t have done pre-COVID.

Aaron Phipps

00:14:59 – 00:15:00

Does that make sense?

Aaron Phipps

00:15:00 – 00:15:26

I think a massive believer in the kind of you know this, a positive that can be found in a negative. And as bad as COVID’s been. It’s also maybe giving us a big wake up call as well. And that has made us take opportunities. Perhaps, you know, I had to lose 30% of my body before I started to use 100% of what was left. You know, COVID could be your 30%, you know, whereas it put you back, what could you do moving forward?

Maria Franzoni

00:15:26 – 00:15:41

Fantastic words. I love that there is a strong parallel, absolutely, and a lot of people have lost a lot, and we appreciate that. But of course, you have lost 30% of your body, as you say. Kilimanjaro, you mentioned it. Tell us the story.

Aaron Phipps

00:15:41 – 00:16:24

Yeah, okay. So I just bought the end of a little bit about haven’t I but yeah. So the idea was that was a charity challenge. And when I stepped down from from playing rugby after 2012, the Meningitis Research Foundation approached me. I do my fundraising for and and asked me if I fancied it. Um, I agreed to it on a whim. Again, I have to agree to things I perhaps shouldn’t. And we looked into it. Other people have been up killing in a chair. They’ve been carried to the top. Although I’m an amputee and I’ve got prosthetic legs, I’ve got bad scars on my legs. I never would have been able to walk up the mountain. I was going to have to try and use a wheelchair. So we set this goal

Aaron Phipps

00:16:24 – 00:17:02

to become the first person in the world to get to the top of Kilimanjaro in a chair, but without any assistance, which seemed like a good idea. When we set that goal, I got myself especially adapted wheelchair called a mountain trike and we flat Tanzania and we set off. Day one was meant to take between two and three hours. The chair was never going to cope. It took six hours in the chair. The next day was meant to take between four and five hours. It took us 10.5 hours. I should probably explain. It takes most people six days to get to the summit able-bodied people. At that point, they said we’re going to have to carry you and I said

Aaron Phipps

00:17:02 – 00:17:30

under none certain terms, that’s not happening. And it got very heated on the side of a mountain in Tanzania were almost screaming at each other. But I had some knee pads with me. I knew that I can move fast out of my wheelchair and I could in my wheelchair and I had a really technical piece of mountaineering equipment with me called duct tape. So I duct tape my knee pads to my legs. I jumped out of my wheelchair, refused any help from the guides, and I crawled on my hands and knees for four days to get to the summit.

Maria Franzoni

00:17:30 – 00:17:39

Wow, Wow, I don’t know if you’re crazy or just incredibly brave. How long did it take you to recover physically from that?

Aaron Phipps

00:17:39 – 00:18:11

It took about six weeks. It’s funny when you say my body, I didn’t realise what I was doing, Maria. I just I’m very stubborn. I thought there’s no way I’m going to get carried up this mountain. That’s not happening. And it just seemed normal for me to do that. And it wasn’t till I got home and I started telling people the story and they’d say, What happened? So I said I just crawled to get to the top, so I wasn’t gonna be carried and people go. Sorry. What? What do you mean, you crawled? And it was at that moment, I kind of realised what had actually achieved. And it was really, really humbling. And that’s something I speak about now.

Maria Franzoni

00:18:11 – 00:18:13

Fantastic. And you were the first person to do that?

Aaron Phipps

00:18:13 – 00:18:23

Yes. Yeah, as we understand it. First-person with my level of disability. I mean, the guides have been doing it for years, and they have never seen anybody crawling up the mountain, so yeah, first-person.

Maria Franzoni

00:18:23 – 00:18:24

Wow.

Maria Franzoni

00:18:24 – 00:18:42

Well, well, well, Okay. Amazing. I mean, we can hear from the way you speak any way that you are absolutely passionate about what you do. You’re passionate as well about sports psychology. And I know that you personally made some big changes from 2012 to 2020. Can you talk us through some of those changes?

Aaron Phipps

00:18:42 – 00:19:14

Okay. Yeah. So in 2012, I was probably set the scene with this. We came fifth. So we did our best as a team. We were quite a young, fresh squad. I’ve already mentioned I’m a high point player. So I carry a lot of the team’s points when we’re competing. And I don’t know if I just got some bad advice or I just presumed this is what elite athletes did. But before games, I get myself really hyped up. So I’m one of life’s natural worrier’s catastrophes. So, so my teammates can switch that off and they can just go into a game and not care. But I care.

Aaron Phipps

00:19:14 – 00:19:59

And I start to think about silly things, you know? Oh, my gosh, everybody’s watching me. What if I throw the ball the wrong way? Oh, my gosh. I’m going to make mistakes. This could mean we lose £2 million worth of funding for my squad. So to get my brain in a place where I thought I needed to be, I get myself really hyped up, so I’d be there before a game, listening to really loud dance music. I would be like punching the ceiling, drinking isotonic, energy drinks, whooping and hollering. But I was really being honest in a complete state of fight or flight all the time, and I didn’t realise this. And when I went back in 2017 to the squad, I started working with a new psychologist from Chimp Management, and

Aaron Phipps

00:19:59 – 00:20:43

He works under that umbrella, and it’s the idea that your brain is much better when it’s in a calm, composed state. So we would look our pregame processes so before again before London, as I said, completely hyped up punching ceiling, and he kind of explained to me I was getting myself completely overstimulated. So we started to look at new pregame processes, so we practised them over a number of years on the build up to the games. Sometimes I didn’t stimulate myself enough so I wouldn’t be hyped up enough and I’ll be too complacent going into a match, and it really was a learning curve. But as we went into the Tokyo 2020 games, I have my processes nailed down and they were as follows. I have a list of points working on at any given time.

Maria Franzoni

00:20:43 – 00:20:46

You’re going to show me, aren’t you? Which is always good on a podcast, but describe…

Aaron Phipps

00:20:46 – 00:20:50

I know some people might be watching it, but I’ve got a list of points I’m working on at any given time.

Maria Franzoni

00:20:50 – 00:20:53

So that’s an A4 piece of paper where you’ve literally handwritten.

Aaron Phipps

00:20:53 – 00:21:23

My script, you know. What I always meant to write it’s up to me, and I didn’t and this actually came with me to the Paralympics, and it’s these things I’m working on. So scanning to limit options composed for 10 seconds dribble. They’re just little points. I’m working on it. I like the logic, but you can never be the finished article, and you can always be better. So that’s why I have my list of notes that I’m working on before again, and that helps keep me calm. And my second pregame process now versus before London, is that I like to have a cup of tea,

Aaron Phipps

00:21:23 – 00:21:55

so sit in the changing room and I have a cup of tea and I find that helps keep me calm. Just about the right amount of caffeine and it’s very British as well, isn’t it half a cup of tea before we go to war. And that’s what I try and do to before I go into the game. But we’re now at a point where we’re trying to work for other people, to support them, other athletes, if I can help them because if I think some of the emotional turmoil that I’ve been through, you know, with my worrying state and the way that I was trying to hype myself up, I hope that other people don’t have to go through that and if I can help someone else and that’s really important for me.

Maria Franzoni

00:21:55 – 00:22:18

Actually, you know I’m a worrier, so I would benefit from that and I’m sure that there are a lot of people out there in business and organisations. A lot of leaders who are worried, you know, we’re worried about what’s happening at the moment. It’s still, we’re still in a state of uncertainty. And you know, people are worried not only about the pandemic still being around but also about climate change, about all sorts of things. So actually, I think

Maria Franzoni

00:22:18 – 00:22:37

I think that’s really interesting. I think it’s very valuable. And I love what you said that never the finished article and that you’re passionate about that, aren’t you? That you are on a journey and that I’m sure that and you like to work with people who are in that similar mindset, aren’t they? That they also feel they’re on a journey? They’re not finished. There’s more to accomplish. Is that right?

Aaron Phipps

00:22:37 – 00:23:13

Yes. Yeah, Anybody’s Yeah. Anybody who’s trying to progress or move forward. I still am in my in my sport. I’m still competing. I’d like to compete in the Paris 2024 Paralympics. You know, I hope I don’t get injured and my shoulders holdout. I’d really like to take my girls to games, but I like that thought that you’re always on a journey and you can always be better. And I like to work with people to help them achieve that, or maybe question what they’re doing or work in a different way. I certainly find that beneficial to listen to other speakers myself or to or to listen to your podcasts, Maria, and find out what people are up to any sort of nuggets you can get from that to help you progress really important.

Maria Franzoni

00:23:13 – 00:23:18

Let’s finish on what’s next. So you mentioned 2024 Olympics. What? What else?

Aaron Phipps

00:23:18 – 00:23:29

Yeah, I’d like to go to the 2024 games, and I don’t think the service stop. I think my thing will be finding things that people haven’t done in a wheelchair and then trying to conquer them. I think that would be my thing moving forward.

Maria Franzoni

00:23:29 – 00:24:05

Things that people haven’t done in a wheelchair. Okay, if you would like to write in and challenge are on his next adventure, things that people haven’t done in a wheelchair. Please do and thank you for your time. It’s been lovely to host you. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself. Thank you, everybody, for listening to The Speaker Show. If you enjoy this episode, please leave a rating on Apple podcasts, and you can keep up with future episodes on the Speakers Associates website, which is speakers associates dot com. If you’d like to book Aaron for your next conference. Please make sure you get in touch with Speakers Associates in plenty of time so that you won’t be disappointed. I’ll see you all next week. Thank you very much.