From a near fatal car accident to 5 time Paralympian and Gold Medalist with Greg Smith
In this week’s episode I had the wonderful opportunity of speaking with 5-time Paralympian and gold medallist Greg Smith. This is a truly EPIC conversation where Greg discusses growing up in Ballarat, enlisting into the Australian Army and his goals and aspirations in being a part of the Australian Defence Force. However, a long drive home one evening changed the course of his life!
Greg does not leave any stone unturned as he discusses his accident, the long and rigorous rehabilitation and state of mind during this time. A conversation and the lending of a racing wheelchair, spurs his active internal competitive streak which then leads him on the new journey of becoming a Paralympian in wheelchair athletics and then wheelchair rugby.
We discuss the milestones, the trials, and tribulations in both his sporting career and personal life. Greg discusses the preparations surrounding his participation in the 2000 Sydney Paralympics and the 2012 London Paralympics where he had the honour of being flag bearer for Australia
One thing that shines through in this interview is Greg’s perseverance, zest for life, to make the most out of every opportunity, his humour, yet his openness, rawness, and honesty.
It truly was a gift, a real honour to be a part of this interview! I know you will enjoy it and get so much out of it, as did I!
Links:
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Email: thebraingamechanger@gmail.com
Follow @ausparalympics on Instagram
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Melissa Gough 0:08
Hello and welcome to an episode of The Brain Game Changer: where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. Each week we delve into the experiences of amazing humans, advocates and organisations from all walks of life, who share their adversities, the triumphs after tragedy, the milestones and those brain game changing moments right here in front of the mic. Through this journey together, we may find that we can learn some valuable tools, knowledge or education that will lead us into becoming game changers for ourselves, or someone around us or even for our community. My name is Melissa, thank you for inviting me into your space. It is great to be with you.
Melissa Gough 0:55
Today I had the privileged opportunity to speak with five time Australian Paralympian Greg Smith. Former instructor in the Australian Army, gold medalist, flag bearer at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, husband and father to three wonderful boys. This amazing human lays it all bare right here in front of the mic. It is quite a remarkable conversation, and his honesty, strength, resilience and humour shines throughout it. He's a true gift. Without further ado, let's get into the interview.
Melissa Gough 1:35
Good afternoon, Greg, and welcome to The Brain Game Changer podcast. It is wonderful to have you with us today.
Greg Smith 1:40
Hello, Mel. It's a pleasure to be here.
Melissa Gough 1:43
So as I speak to you, you're just come back from a well deserved couple of weeks off with your family. How was your time away? What did you get up to?
Greg Smith 1:51
Yeah, it was great. Thank you. We took some time off over the Easter break, which coincided with school holidays. So it worked out well. I took the Easter break and then the second week as well. The first week we went to a place called Lake Tyers, which is down near Lakes Entrance, did a lot of fishing, a lot of drinking good wine and enjoying time with family. So my outlaws were all down there as well, that was great, it was good to spend some time with them. The kids got to catch up with their cousins and they had a blast. Yeah, so that was really good. Because we've been there before, I know that access for a manual type wheelchair isn't that great. Like it's quite a hilly caravan park, with all dirt roads, and on top of a cliff, I guess that looks out over the ocean, so it's all beach and everything down over there and it was a little bit difficult last year. But this time, so in the last 12 months since then, through NDIS, I was approved of funding for a four wheel drive, power wheelchair. We took that down there, and that just opened up a whole new world really, because I just use my normal chair, I just have my small, everyday wheelchair around the cabin and things like that. Then whenever I wanted to get out and go off and do things, I jumped in the power chair and away we went. I got to access the sand and the beach for the first time. I walked along the beach, says with inverted commas (chuckles).
Melissa Gough 3:13
I get you, I get you.
Greg Smith 3:16
We did a 6k walk, which was really cool. Yeah, so that was good fun! Just got to hang out on the sand with the kids and also went and did some surf fishing with my father in law and brother in law, and that was great fun. I've never really done any surf fishing before. That was a unique experience and something that I loved and would love to do some more of. It was a really enjoyable time.
Melissa Gough 3:35
That sounds awesome. What's been lovely to hear right now is you've added some new normals to your world that, you know, that weren't accessible beforehand. So that's brilliant.
Greg Smith 3:45
Yes, that was fantastic. I'm someone that always tries to do everything that I can to stay involved with life, and now that I'm in a wheelchair, however being able to do something like that was fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable.
Melissa Gough 3:58
That's brilliant. So in researching you, Greg, I have to say it was quite amazing. You have been in five Paralympics between the years of 1992 to 2012. You've also participated in the world championships as well. So as a result of this, you have 10 gold medals, three silver medals and two bronze medals, both in athletics and wheelchair rugby. You have also been given the Medal of Order of Australia, and you also have an honorary doctorate from the University of Ballarat.
Melissa Gough 4:30
That's right. Yes. Doctor of the University! (chuckles).
Melissa Gough 4:34
I love that! So you're just like Dr. Google , we can come to anything.
Greg Smith 4:40
Exactly! Yes. Not specialised in anything but everything!
Melissa Gough 4:44
I love that. I love that! You should have that written on a t- shirt with a big sign. We're going to talk about all these amazing achievements that you've done, but we're going to segue back and I'm going to ask what was growing up like for you? How would you describe yourself growing up? Where were you? What did you do?
Greg Smith 5:00
Yeah, so I'm born and bred pretty much a Ballarat boy, I'm in Victoria. I would consider what I had, as a normal kid, went through primary school, went through high school, got involved with all the sports and things like that, that you do as you're a kid growing up wasn't probably the greatest academic student. I guess I knew the things that I had to do, but I was just probably a little bit lazy, applying myself to pushing myself beyond being an average student, but you know, outside on the ovals and in the playground and stuff, you know, that was where I loved to be. Was great fun with my friends and playing whatever sports that I could. Yeah, I think sort of up until about the age of 19 where life pretty well changed, I would have considered it a fairly normal, normal life Mel.
Melissa Gough 5:48
You've described yourself as really sport competitive and internally competitive and very driven with the sports? Did you want to go to university? Or were you starting to look at other horizons for your next chapter after finishing your Year 12?
Greg Smith 6:01
University was probably where I wanted to go. I mean, at that stage, you know, I had a focus on becoming a Phys Ed Teacher. I wanted to work in something physical, in sport in some way, and Phys Ed teaching probably didn't sort of have the high profile strength conditioning coaches and things like that they have these days in sporting clubs. Phys Ed teaching was sort of what I wanted to do at the time. Finished year 12 and got accepted to go to university, had the end of the year break over Christmas and my friends, my best friends, we're all out working now. Two of them had apprenticeships, and one of them was working in a bank in finance. I had a part time job working at a hardware store called McEwans, which was basically a Bunnings. I had a part time job working Friday night and Saturday morning and Christmas holidays and all those sorts of things. Working part time, money was good. It could put petrol in my car, and I could do most of the things, but my mates were all working full time. They had a lot more money than I did and on weekends, and things like that, they were all having a lot more fun than I was because of that fact. So I sort of thought, yeah, I probably really need to go and get myself a job, going to take a year off. That's fine.
But I need to probably work through the year to see what I really wanted to do with my life, if uni wasn't going to work out in any way. One day I was just wandering along a side street in Ballarat and walked past an army recruitment office. To this day, I have absolutely no idea what it was, I had no plan. I wasn't down the street to do anything like that at all, when I just did this, you know, left hand turn, walked in through the front doors and asked all these guys some questions about the army. An hour later I went home and told the man that I'd signed up.
Melissa Gough 7:46
Oh, wow!
Greg Smith 7:47
I'd never had any inclination to join the army.There was nothing about it that fascinated me anyway, I did all these sorts of you know, running around fire and sticks, that you know, playing war games and stuff like that as a kid, but I was never, never interested at all.
Melissa Gough 8:04
How was the news taken when you went home? So your family has thought, okay, Greg's off to university, he is going to do this degree, that's awesome. They've sort of got this vision of where you're heading, and you go home, and I guess what I'm doing this instead, how was that used taken?
Greg Smith 8:18
I can clearly remember a sort of dazed expression on my mother's face. Like she never ever was pushing me into any sorts of career or any direction or anything like that. So for me to kind of change my mind probably wasn't something that would have surprised her in any way. But the fact that I, to go and do something, I can't even remember what I was doing, but to then come home later in the day, and tell her that I'm joining the army, and I'm leaving in three to six weeks… Yeah, she had a bit of a dazed expression on her face.
Melissa Gough 8:54
Oh, gosh, I can imagine as a parent, you know, you're a parent now. You go through all the emotions in your head when your child starts telling you different things that they want to do. And you go through all the different layers of emotions just to find a way to deal with it. So you start preparing for the army. Tell us about your entry into the army. What did it entail?
Greg Smith 9:14
During my time in the Army Corps was about two years before I had my accident, I was going off and doing lots of different courses as well. We went and did a parachute course and did some marksmanship stuff. You know, I still always had that physical education idea iin the back of my head all the time as well. So I actually applied when a course came up to go and become a physical training instructor with the army. This is potentially my way of probably still being around the Armoured Corps, but then working in a different part. We're actually training troops and keeping them fit and healthy and probably working more at Puckapunyal base working in that area. Training lots of different troops in lots of different corps or soldiers in lots of different corps.
I will go off, and I did this physical training instructors course. Just before I left, I sort of started to think things through a bit about being something different than the army, and I applied to join the SAS, to have a go at their course. Only the best is taken, and that's not just physically but that's, you know, mentally and psychologically and all those sorts of things as well. I have no idea whether I would have ever got it, but I wanted to have a crack at it anyway. I applied for the course, and off, I went and did this PTI course. The PTI course went for eight weeks, I think it was, and that was up in Sydney, and it was great, it was fantastic. I loved it and had a great time! Then they said to me, "yep, you know what, there is a position back in Puckapunyal, you can go back to core and you'll become your sub unit PTI with armoured core."I thought, well, that's fantastic, such a good start. It was actually on that trip back when I had my car accident and everything changed.
Melissa Gough 11:05
So we're going to lean into this if you're ready, Greg. So we're going to lean into the events of that one particular day. I guess it was the day that sort of started off like many others.
Greg Smith 11:14
Yeah, I mean, it was the last day of the course, it has come to its conclusion, we know our final results. Because, we're all soldiers from all around the country coming from different cores, you know, so we were all sort of saying our farewells and things like that. The night before we'd actually gone out and there were probably, I don't know, 6-8 of us that went out, and it was the last chance we're all probably gonna see each other unless we stumbled across each other, at other postings. But more times than not, we wouldn't have seen each other again. So we went out. I was 19, young and you know, full of life and beans, and I don't know what time we knocked off the day before. We were out having a meal by sort of six o'clock that night. I think I got into bed about 530am in the morning. So it'd been quite a big night, lots of drinking, and just yeah, as I said, like a really late night. Now, we were getting mastered again at six o'clock. Yeah. So basically in bed for 30 minutes, I don't know.
Melissa Gough 12:18
No, we used to do all those things at 19! We're invincible at 19!
Greg Smith 12:22
That's right! I got up at 6am, probably got about 10 minutes sleep if I got that, and had to work that day, just finishing off parts of our course. I think I was tidying up and helping clean up the course and buildings and things like that, but pushed through that day. Then at four o'clock in the afternoon, we were sort of told that's it, you can leave and away you go and, and I drove up there. I wasn't going to drive my car originally, but there was a guy who I worked with in Pucka, who was from Sydney and he said to me or suggested that I really should take my car up, because I was just going to catch the train up. Take my car because I can use the car to drive around Sydney and do things on weekends when you don't need to be on course or working. So I drove up. I didn't use the car the whole time I was there! It remained in the car park the whole time, until I got in it to come home at four o'clock that afternoon.
I'd been out all night. I worked and then got in the car, and away I went. I don't really remember the details of the trip coming back other than I remember stopping a couple times to get some fuel. I think it was a Wednesday evening that I left Sydney. About midnight Thursday, I stopped around Puckapunyal, knowing that I had Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off before I had to start back at base on Monday. I remember pulling up and you could look across and sort of see your barracks and your room and things like that, and I thought I really probably should go in and have a sleep as there's no one up at home. It's the middle of the night, get some sleep and finish it all tomorrow morning. We've got a bed that's five hundred metres away from me, but yeah, like you said you're 19 you're invincible. I just put the car back in gear and away I went again thinking I can just get to mums and they knew I was coming home through the night so she's probably maybe expecting me in some way. That was the plan to get home because you know I wanted obviously my mates and the girlfriend and that they were the priority back then.
Then about an hour later, probably around Daylesford way, just outside of Daylesford, about 50 kms from home is when I started to, yeah, feel the need to sleep. You get the head nods and the wobbles you know. The eyes started to get a bit droopy and I started to do all these things. I remember putting the window down to try and keep awake that way. I remember turning the music up louder. I remember putting the air conditioning on, even though it is the middle of the night in country Victoria so it was pretty cool even though it was February and I just had a really odd pair of running shorts on and just a really light three quarter length t-shirt. I remember wearing that. I guess eventually you know all those things that you tried to do, they run out and there's nothing left to do. The next thing I remember was just sort of looking ahead and the car lights. I could see bush, then I saw the road and then I sort of did nothing.
So what would have happened was, I was rounding a bend, when I came to the lights, we're heading towards the bush. I think I grabbed the wheel to steer out of it, I oversteered as I went across the road, and jumped to the top of the fence. The car landed on its side in a paddock, and then it skittered on its side until it crashed into a tree, and then it fell back down on its wheels. Where it impacted the tree was right above the driver passenger roofline. When it hit the tree, it snapped my neck forward, my head forward and fractured and dislocated the C6 C7 vertebrae in my neck, where it's dislocated, then pinched the spinal cord, and that's where the damage has been done. I don't know how long I was out for but I wasn't probably out, well, I remember immediately after the accident, because I just remember lots of noise and banging and things like that. And then everything stopped. I just sort of sat there thinking, you know what's just happened here! I remember, still sort of still sitting in the car, I don't remember being uncomfortable in terms of my head being forced down or anything like that. I do remember having a really stiff neck, like, if you wake up and you slept wrong, or so I remember sort of rolling my head around clockwise and the neck felt bloody sore.
Greg Smith 16:34
Definitely not the smartest thing to have done with a spinal injury. I remember thinking while I was patting my legs, well, that's weird, I kind of can't, I can't feel my legs very well. I don't remember whether I thought I could move them or not. But I just thought I needed to get out of the car, and try and flag someone down to try and get some help and get out of this situation. I remember taking my seatbelt off. I remember opening the door and I remember climbing out, but then I landed face first on the ground. I thought oh. What's going on here? Well, I can't walk, so I'll just have to crawl something to get up to the road. Because you know, this is pitch black, It's dark, it's snowing. I didn't even know where it was. I didn't know what was going on.
I started to crawl, and I've kept trying and crawling. After a while I thought about this, but now I don't know where I am. I don't know what's going on, I'm tired. By now I can taste blood in my mouth because the roof actually split my head open quite badly. So I sort of thought, Oh, this is it, I'm stuffed! So I lay on the ground, and I've never really given up on anything in my life, but at that point I did. I thought, this is it, it was exactly where it's all over, it's all done. I lay there and I apologised to my mother because I didn't make it home, and I apologised to my friends because I didn't make it home, then I closed my eyes, and I thought well, that's it. That was literally where I thought it was all done.
Then I heard a voice, "dad, there's someone down here," and then that was it again. The next memory I had was, I was in a hospital which turned out to be Daylesford, and that was a vague sort of clouded memory. The next real clear memory I have was my mum beside me, they transferred me from Daylesford to Ballarat, and I was laying on a hospital bed in Ballarat with her beside me. But that voice I'd heard was this, the farmer and his son. They had been in this paddock pulling these trees down the day before, and they were coming in to pull this one tree that was still remaining there that they hadn't been able to get down the day before.
Melissa Gough 18:44
And that was the one tree. That's the one tree that your car hit. Wow!
Greg Smith 18:51
I'd knock that over for him! (Greg chuckles). So they came to it and they found me and the rest is sort of history. I mean, I was very lucky that they did find me when they did because I was pretty much told another hour or so, I would have frozen to death! I had hypothermia. I was wrapped up in a space blanket for about three days I think, trying to get my body temperature back to its normal range. So yeah, that was pretty much it. When I woke up with my mum there, I just thought, do you know what's going on? She said, “ You've had a car accident and you have got some damage to your neck, but we don't really know what else that means.” By the end of the day. I was in a police helicopter being flown from Ballarat to The Auston Hospital in Melbourne.
Melissa Gough 19:35
First of all, thank you for sharing and being so honest, in what happened in that moment. It is appreciated and I think people hearing what happened in that moment will give them an understanding of where you've come from, where you've been and where you're heading.
Melissa Gough 19:57
So you arrived at the Austin hospital. How long were you in the hospital together? What's going on at the time?
Greg Smith 20:05
I suppose that my first experience in Intensive Care was, I guess, just an examination. I remember being asked lots of questions. I remember getting poked and prodded with pins and things like that, in all these different areas to determine what sensation and movement that I had. Because obviously, any damage to your spinal cord is going to have repercussions on feeling and movement, autonomic systems in your body that, you know, like your heart rate, and all those sorts of things that just happen, digestion and your bowels, the bladder, all that sort of stuff.
So they were assessing all that. In the end, they determined that I had a fracture dislocation of C6 C7, as I said before, and had no idea, other than that, then off, I went to the ward. Now for the first two weeks, I couldn't move anything from my neck down. What happens is your body goes into what they call spinal shock, and it just shuts down, and sort of essentially, it's doing its healing, and it's doing its own assessments in its own time, I suppose. Those two weeks, it was horrific. In terms of thought, thought processes and things like that, one minute I was a 19 year old kid who had his whole future ahead of him. I decided that this is what I want, I really want to be a 20 year soldier. I love the job. I love my friends, I had these ambitions of you know, doing this SAS course and seeing where that went, might just become a PTI.
All of a sudden, all that was gone, I was now just a 19 year old laying in a bed, who couldn't move anything from his chin down. What sort of life is this? I remember having conversations like that with my mother. I don't want to be here anymore. Like, how is this living, I don't want to live like this. Those conversations were probably the first couple of months, whilst in hospital. What had happened is that for me to heal, they put me in traction, what they've done is they've screwed these metal screws, and they were attached like head tongs and they screwed those into the sides of my scalp. These head tongs went up over the top of your head, then a cable ran off the end of that over the bed and it had weight hanging on it. I can't remember how much weight was attached to mine. But what that obviously did was then pull your spine, or your vertebrae into alignment in traction and hold them in a position like that then heal. So 12 weeks, that's how I was laying on my back.
Melissa Gough 22:27
Sounds gruelling.
Greg Smith 22:28
I had no idea what my life was going to be. Now after those two weeks, I remember laying on my side one day, because what they would do is, if you're in one position in a bed, for any extended period of time, there's risks of pressure sores and things like that. Because if your body's not functioning, you're losing muscle mass and you're losing weight. All of a sudden all these bony problems that are a skeleton, start to show themselves. So what they do is they have these teams come in all the time, and they turn you over and they move you and put you in positions so that you can relieve the pressure on the body. I remember I'd been put onto my side one day, and it certainly breaks the boredom of looking at the roof the whole time as well. Because when you're staring at the ceiling, and the only thing you can see is that area that your eyes are able to move around peripherally, you miss out on a heck of a lot that's going on.
I was on my side and my hand was out, and all of a sudden I got that I could see these little flickers in my fingers. I just thought, oh my god, this movement there! Yeah, it could be something coming back, and that got a little bit more and more overtime and took it to a point that I am pretty much where I am now where my left hand is not too bad, it works quite well. Basically that level of C6 C7 essentially makes you a quadriplegic. Anything below the neck, below those, the C the vertebrae in your neck, the cervical vertebra, you start getting to thoracic you become then classified paraplegic, so I was a quadriplegic. I started to get these little flickers of finger function on my left hands.
My right hand is worse, but can still do these sorts of things. I can't really grip things very well or very strongly. My arms and upper body probably work at I don't know 95%. There are some muscles that haven't come through and sort of didn't come back with function and things like that, but the majority of them are good. Now I can push a manual chair and lift myself around getting in and out of the car and off the floor and all those sorts of things. No function in my lower body. So from probably my mid chest I've got no abdominal or core or back or near any of that functioning. My legs don't work. I have sensation and varying sorts of sensation, touch and feel and things like that. All of that adds up to what they've been called incomplete quadriplegia, quadriplegic. Four limbs are still affected, but I can still have quite a lot more movement than just being you know, maybe driving a wheelchair with your chin or or anything like that. Kind of consider myself fortunate in some ways, and not so fortunate, you know.
Melissa Gough 25:03
I gather you're in hospital for a long time, and you've talked about the darker days of what it was like for you. You're internally trying to find what the hell is going on with me right now? What's my future looking like? How were the responses from your family and your loved ones around you through this time?
Greg Smith 25:20
You know, I don't remember a lot of reactions from people. But I remember one clear reaction from my mum, and she said," if you think that I'm going to give up on you, after spending all this money on food and clothing and education, they've got another thing coming!". I just thought, it's as simple as that. Why would your parents give up on you? If she wasn't going to give up on me, then why would I give up on myself? I need to give myself some sort of chance and see where this can go.
Melissa Gough 25:50
That unconditional love from your mum.
Greg Smith 25:52
Yeah!
Melissa Gough 25:52
Even though it was probably a harsh reality.
Greg Smith 25:55
Oh yeah!
Melissa Gough 25:57
Brutal word that time, it probably gave you kickstarter that sort of brain game changing moment, you just thought okay, Mom, all right.
Greg Smith 26:04
I'll look back now and you know, a lot of things in those early days where she just basically said, you know, get over yourself and get on with it. Well, I'd be looking for some sort of help and some empathy and she'd be, “well, I can give you empathy, but I'm not going to give you sympathy.” So get going. Yeah, what's the saying you get busy living or get busy dying, I think is the quote from Shawshank Redemption. So when I look back now, I think it's probably, probably fair.
Melissa Gough 26:41
So your rehabilitation is gruelling, as you've given us a snippet of what that rehabilitation is like, it goes for one and a half years, every little milestone is a victory. And then every setback is a questioning doubt. But then about a year and a half into your rehabilitation, you will get a racing wheelchair.
Greg Smith 27:00
That's right. Yeah. So my whole time actually in the hospital was six months, so three months laying on my back. Then three months sort of getting up and using a wheelchair and learning how to do the dressing and working with fingers and hands that don't work 100%. A lot of that sort of second three months was that I was learning to drive a car again towards the end of that. And during that time, you would have different people, peers, I guess in a way you would probably call them who would come in and chat to you about life in a chair and what things to look for. And these are things that you can maybe get some assistance with. There wasn't a lot of it back in those days, things are a lot better nowadays for that sort of stuff. Like there's some really good organisations that get in like the Australian Quadriplegics Association, AQA, they're fantastic at it now with peer support. My physiotherapist at the time was amazing. I think I was really lucky that I had this group of people around me that were really, really supportive, really proactive and look, I think my approach to things at that stage has changed a lot as well. So they were engaged in what I wanted to do.
These were really proactive people who wanted to help me the best that they could and really sort of pushed me a little bit as well. So this physiotherapist Yvonne was one of these people. Now she has a friend, Michael, who now is a great mate of mine and has been for all these years was about the same level of injury as I am. So incomplete quad, basically the same function and movement. He was a policeman who had a party, dove off a shed into a swimming pool, and he changed his direction and ended up hitting the bottom of the pool and broke his neck. He was a wheelchair racer. So Yvonne had said, "look, I've got this friend Michael, he's a wheelchair racer, he's going to come in and have a chat with you and you guys may hit it off.” Michael is about 15 or 16 years older than me. He came in and had a chat and yeah, I don't know what sort of tickles my fancy, you know, getting a wheelchair racing chair because I never really enjoyed athletics. I hated it. I love football, played football, but I didn't like running laps at football so I didn't know why I thought I was going to get into a racing wheelchair and enjoy it! He comes and sees me a couple times. When I left the hospital was when I got the chair.
There used to be an athletics track at The University of Ballarat and I remember going down there with my brother and probably my mum with this chair and getting lifted into this because I wasn't strong enough to transfer. There's quite a bit of technique involved in transferring as well which makes it all come about levers and movement to make your job easier when you don't have the function. I am still learning how to do that. They lifted me in, strapped me up, put some gloves on and I went for a push and I probably only went 100 metres and I was absolutely exhausted! But all of a sudden I now had a focus! I want to go 200 metres and I want to get to 400 metres and so on. This is where athletics became the thing that grabbed me, I suppose. Or during all this time I was going through the process of being discharged from the army so I didn't have a job. They basically said, you know, if you can't bare arms, you can't do anything for us. I don't know whether that's changed these days, or whether you'd still be able to keep a job in some regard, because you're not useless. There's certainly things you'd be able to still do in the service.
Melissa Gough 30:15
Especially your knowledge and the fact you've gone through that.
Greg Smith 30:18
Yeah, that's right.
Melissa Gough 30:20
How did that feel for you at that time?
Greg Smith 30:22
Oh, look, it was hard at that age and without that understanding, because I probably agree with it, because I couldn't do the things that I thought that they wanted me to do and that I wanted to do so, and I didn't have the maturity to understand that well. There are other things I can do and still be, still with my mates and things like that. So I probably just accepted it and got on with it. But as I said, I didn't have a job. I was obviously going to be looked after because I had an injury at work and in the army. I essentially could focus full time on this sporting career. Yeah, following those initial sort of days at the track, I got right into it. I fell in love with it, and I kind of took it to the next level.
Melissa Gough 31:16
Where did the inspiration come to go and be a Paralympian? Obviously, there's a process that's allowable disabilities, and then you undergo a classification assessment. What sparked you to then go and think, you know what I'm gonna go represent Australia as a Paralympian.
Greg Smith 31:32
It all comes from that initial spark of me wanting to challenge myself and push myself to that next level, that next thing all the time. That first 100 metres, then 200 metres that you know, then it became I want to do a race. If I want to do a race, I need a coach, I need to find a coach. So I was obviously still friends with Michael and he was still racing. And he was encouraging me, helping me along. Then I went to our first ever competition, in New South Wales. I've done a little bit of training, I can't remember if it was training with a coach before that or not. But anyway, I knew the distances and I was probably just pushing with Michael on the track and doing the things that he was telling me to do. I went to this competition in Sydney, raced there. This was at the same time that the Paralympics were either on or about to start Seoul Paralympics.
All the Paralympic wheelchair races were away preparing elsewhere; other athletes were sort of getting ready for that; this was my very first wheelchair race. So I just turned up to this event that was on. None of these Paralymians were there. So I raced, and I won these events! (laughter). Because no one else was there sort of thing! (more laughter).
But it was really good, like it kind of inspired me. I really enjoyed it, I met a lot of different new people, and funnily enough, another Michael from Melbourne, as well, who became another really, really good friend and a real mentor. He and I trained together a lot as well. So we had this little group going further and I ended up with a coach and I suppose I just went from there like. Going from different sorts of meets and then progressively getting better and better. Then someone comes to you and says, "you know, what would you think of trying for the Paralympics?" So yeah, of course I would want to see if I can take this, and that's probably how I ended up getting to see my first Paralympic Games. The first Paralympic Games I attended were in 1992 in Barcelona. I got my bum spanked in the single individual events (chuckles). That was a brilliant experience! Unbelievable! But of course, not achieving the goals that you want to achieve. You go home, you train for another four years. You go to Atlanta, win a silver medal in Atlanta, however, I forgot to mention, I won a bronze medal in the marathon in Barcelona, which was amazing.
Melissa Gough 33:44
Yes, it is.
Greg Smith 33:45
There were little things that kind of weren't just getting your bum spanked and tail between your legs. I did have some successes, absolutely huge to kind of keep that inspiration going as well. Each four years, there was one more little taste which spurred me to try harder and go further. The goal for me all the way through was always to win a gold medal. And if I did it, if I didn't at the end of the career, then that was always the goal.
Melissa Gough 34:22
So we get to Sydney, the 2000 Olympics, the third of your games, and that's where that taste of gold came through. Can you tell us about it?
Greg Smith 34:31
From the 1998 World Championships in Birmingham in England, I went away from there, and I came home with four or five gold medals from those Championships. I thought what's going on there was like this flick sort of switch, but it wasn't as simple as that. It was just yeah, a lot of learning had gone in in the 10 years leading up to this from 1988 to 1998 losses and learning and understanding, changing training and changing coaches a couple of times. By then, you know, we obviously knew that the next Paralympics was going to be in Sydney. That was a big motivation in itself because for the first time, my parents and my family and friends had seen me race but nothing on this sort of level.
Back at the other two Paralympic Games, you might have seen a little bit of a snippet on the ABC TV for half an hour at night, there was no social media. You couldn't watch streaming events live and there was no way you got the coverage that you get, now. I remember going to a payphone in the village to ring mum, or dad or whatever, ring them up and say, I had my race today and I came forth. It was good, you know, or yeah, no one won a bronze medal today. Yeah, the weather's nice! That is what it was like, nothing like it is now. So for them to be able to come to Sydney and actually see me race. Well, it's the biggest event for an athlete with a disability, the Paralympic Games.
Melissa Gough 36:01
Sure is!
Greg Smith 36:02
2000 was a year in itself, let alone away from the games. Because we were flying to America earlier in the year to go to an event. When we came home, I'd set a world record in the 800 metres and I'd set a world record in the 1500 metres. Now I never ever thought I would win a race, let alone set world records! After that, I sort of thought, I'm not going too bad, yeah! (chuckles). So I was pretty confident when Sydney came around and looked to have that sort of confidence behind you and your home event. That confidence is not only good for you, but it also puts your opposition at a different level, because all of a sudden, they're starting to think, "oh man, this guy is in, he's in shape.” So they're starting to worry about me rather than me worrying about them. Whereas I was like, ‘You know what, I'm just going to worry about yourself.’ I know I've done this before, a few weeks ago. I'm just going hard and they can keep up!
It was just one of those amazing times, where you just have that clarity of confidence and it just happened. I don't think it's ever happened again, in my life. I think I've done a lot of visualisation in my training leading up to it. So I kind of run these races, through my head 1000s of times in all sorts of different scenarios. I knew all the athletes that I was racing against because a lot of them had become friends over the years, we'd raced against each other from around the world. I knew who they were, I knew what they sounded like, I knew what they looked like, I knew how they raced, I knew the positions that they wanted to race in. I'd broken all this down with my psychologist and put it all into my head. If you had practised it every night for you know, probably not the whole four years later, but at least two years of it. So when I raced, it was just like, well, we have already done it.
Melissa Gough 37:47
I've already achieved it in my head.
Greg Smith 37:49
I don't know why people are surprised! (chuckles).
Melissa Gough 37:51
It's interesting, over the years that you're talking about the word visualisation, there is so much research now. I mean, not just for athletics, just everyday life. There is so much research in the power of visualisation and how we walk ourselves through doing the task from the start to the end, as opposed to just thinking of the end result. They've also used people as examples in different studies where they've given them different ways to visualise. And then they saw the outcome of what they achieved. So it's amazing that even back then, that you were using such powerful tools, as part of your training, to get the results that you were, because obviously Sydney was a really great result for you on home ground. It just served everything that you were inspiring to achieve. But then what's interesting is that you do really well at athletics. You spent all this time in preparation, then you thought I'm gonna go do something else to try. What happens next?
Greg Smith 38:45
Yeah, so I retired! I retired in 2002, because I was still sort of trying to race and I just lost the passion for it a little bit, and I'd been doing it for about 15 years, sort of by the time I'd retired, I just lost the passion for it. Training was getting hard, not so much hard physically, but mentally, to get out of bed and keep doing the same sort of thing. I'd achieved everything that I've ever wanted to achieve, plus a little bit more with those world records. Then someone came to me and said to me, oh, and I knew about wheelchair rugby, but I'd never played it. I'd only sort of seen little bits and pieces of it. But asked me if I'd like to play socially? Just jump in a chair and come and be part of a team. I thought you know what, I'm not racing anymore. Sure. Yeah. Just hang out with some friends and play a bit of social wheelchair rugby. Well, that probably inspired a few competitive juices that were still floating around in my body….let's give it a shot. I might see where this can go, and I took it a bit more seriously than just a social game! (chuckles).
Melissa Gough 39:49
When researching I believe wheelchair rugby made its debut at the Sydney Olympics.
Greg Smith 39:53
That's right. Yes it did.
Melissa Gough 39:55
It originated from Canada.
Greg Smith 39:57
Yep. So originally, originally I was called Murderball.
Melissa Gough 40:01
Murderball! Why would they call a game like that Murderball??
Greg Smith 40:05
Marketing terms have probably worked very well, then they ended up changing it. There is actually a movie out there if anyone is interested called Murderball. It's won awards. It was an iconic movie at the time it came out in around 2004 around the early 2000s. Very good movie that tells a story about a few different athletes and their journeys into competing in wheelchair rugby, Paralympic Games and World Championships, and life in a chair. Look out for it. But yes, that was developed in Canada and it was a bit of a cross between game codes, I suppose basketball and ice hockey and American football. There are different sorts of elements of the game from each I suppose. The physicality from ice hockey and American football and then the rules a little bit from basketball and, and it was originally designed by some quadriplegics, who just could not functionally play wheelchair basketball. Back in those days, wheelchair basketball was one of the only wheelchair sports could do with using a wheelchair. And it didn't suit everybody. So these ingenious Canadians came up with wheelchair rugby, or Murderball.
Melissa Gough 41:26
So even though you had retired in 2002, you found a new lease of life in wheelchair rugby, and you decided to go to the London 2012 Olympics.
Greg Smith 41:37
Well, it wasn't, it's not as simple as me deciding, yes! (Laughs). But you know, I'd certainly train hard and put myself up for selection. So it was actually 2008 at the Beijing Games, they were the first ones that I went to for wheelchair rugby. I thought I obviously knew how to be an athlete, especially at a high performance level and elite level after my career with wheelchair racing. So I knew that I had to work hard. I knew with my physical training type background, and I'm working with coaches in wheelchair athletics, so I knew the things I had to do. And just took that on myself, coached myself to get there. I had a team that I played for that had a coach. So I was learning the game, from him and from those athletes in my team and so on. But the physical side of it, I was coaching myself and looking after myself. I was fortunate that I got to a position that, you know, allowed me to be eligible to be selected and I was selected to go to Beijing. So that was good, a different sport. Back in the Paralympic world, which I'd become pretty accustomed to after recent years.
Melissa Gough 42:44
That's brilliant. So you have the experience in a totally different field of sport. You do wheelchair rugby in Beijing. How did you go when you were there?
Greg Smith 42:54
We won a silver medal!
Melissa Gough 42:56
Brilliant!
Greg Smith 42:57
They'd won a silver medal in 2000, the debut, against the USA and we wanted to win the silver medal again against the USA. Then after that, I sort of thought, that's it. I reckon I'm done.
Melissa Gough 43:09
How old were you at this time?
Greg Smith 43:11
It was 2008, so all would have been in my late 30s.
Melissa Gough 43:14
Okay.
Greg Smith 43:15
I wanted to see where it went, I got to the Paralympic Games, and we won a silver medal, and that was great. So I, again, retired from Paralympic sport. The coach at the time, then said to me, " if you don't want to play anymore, hey, would you be interested in being our physical trainer, our strength and conditioning coach for all of our athletes?" I said, yeah, sure, that'd be great! I'd love to still be involved. I don't think I can be an athlete anymore, I'm kind of done with that. So I came on, as the strength conditioning coach for the Australian team. He didn't have an assistant coach, so I became his assistant coach as well and that was my role for a couple of years. I was still playing a little bit, just for fun. But then, of course, I had another, I had another thought where maybe I didn't give myself enough of the go! (chuckles).
Melissa Gough 44:03
So you had another epiphany, is that you've retired from athletics and now you've retired from wheelchair rugby, and then you become an assistant coach with the Paralympic Australian team and a mentor consultant in the strength training, then you think, oh, you know what I'm getting that epiphany those juices are flowing again. And why not? So what's next then?
Greg Smith 44:24
(laughing)That's right! I thought I might have a game left in me and I said to the coach,’ I just can't get this feeling out of me that I didn't get the absolute of where I could get to in wheelchair rugby the first time, how would you feel if I had a go at London 2012?’ He said, "sure but you still need to write the programmes!"
Melissa Gough 44:44
More work!
Greg Smith 44:45
I stayed on board writing all the training programmes but then I became an athlete again. That was in 2010. In 2012 I got selected for the team. London was amazing! Sydney was brilliant because of all of the things that I've already spoken about with athletics, and my family. London was just another game on its own, just another level, I suppose. I mean, you know, social media started to take off. There was an absolutely brilliant campaign out of Channel Four in the UK, focusing on Paralympic athletes, and they did these commercials and ran them through the UK and Europe. So there was this real buzz about Paralympic sport, and it was getting a lot of exposure, the gains were the media was starting to really get on board with a lot more coverage.
As I said, social media was alive and Facebook was out and about. So people were starting to find people that they hadn't seen for a long time. I'd add army friends that I hadn't been in contact with since my accident, because I pushed a lot of those guys away. Because it was a part of my life that was really important to me at the time, and all of a sudden, it was gone. You know, I was struggling with knowing whether I was going to be able to walk, or wipe my nose again, let alone being around all these guys who are still doing the job that I loved and I dreamed about it. I'll tell you all about that too, it was a job that I loved once I sort of got into it, and these were really good mates, but I just hated seeing them still going about that. So I kind of lost all contact with them.
It wasn't until London 2012, when someone must have seen that I had been announced as the flagbearer and things like that. They reached out and said, "oh G'day Smithy, how are you going?" And away it went! So now I've got probably at least half a dozen guys that I 've caught up with a few times over the last few years, but we speak to each other all the time on Messenger and Facebook and things like that. So these guys were sort of seeing my name on the TV being selected, and at the time, I'd also been named as the Australian team captain and flag bearer for the Paralympic Opening Ceremony. Just unbelievable in itself to be chosen to lead our country in the opening ceremony carrying the national flag was just wow! I've been selected for another Paralympics, which was brilliant, and I was so excited about it. But this was just something else again!
Melissa Gough 47:15
What an honour to be asked.
Greg Smith 47:16
That's right. It was like an acknowledgement of all the years that I sort of put into training and trying to be an athlete and having some successes along the way, and it was just an incredible game. Then we had a team that was an amazing team of athletes. We smashed everybody ! We went through that tournament with an average winning margin of 13 goals or something; you only get one one goal every time you cross the tryline. So to win an event at that level, by an average of 13, just something you would never see done again. We won the gold medal! It was just an unbelievable event and then a brilliant finale. It was my finale to occur, my actual athletic career.
Melissa Gough 48:02
Third time lucky saying that you had retired! I'm going to make a connection at the time of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, I was actually living there at the time. London has been my home for 15 years. I moved back to Melbourne the year after. I agree with you, it was absolutely phenomenal. The buzz it was, I mean London's already a lively playground. it was alive above and beyond anything that I could have ever imagined. Paralympics was making a really wonderful platform on social media and on television. Even like recently, when we had our Olympics and Paralympics last year, what was very interesting, it's now on mainstream TV, going back to what you said, you know, you're ringing your parents going, hey, you know, you might get half an hour on ABC, where it's now on platform national television. There's a lot more sponsorship, there's a lot more awareness.
Greg Smith 48:55
Certainly come a long way and hopefully still a way to go. But yeah!
Melissa Gough 48:59
I agree.
Greg Smith 49:00
It's been great, yeah great!
Melissa Gough 49:01
You have been on quite a ride through this journey. Thank you. You've shared so much about it.
Melissa Gough 49:06
I'm going to talk about the relationships through your life, while all this was going on. You had a partner at the time when the accident happened. I gather after that things didn't work out, and you know, you've had a couple of relationships since then and been married. There's been some instances where they didn't work out either. Can you share with us in a relationship aspect about what it's been like for you after your accident?
Greg Smith 49:42
Yeah, sure. I had a girlfriend at the time of my accident. I was 19 she was 17 but at the time, you know, as I said before, I kind of pushed my army friends away. I just had this focus obviously on what my new life was going to be about. I didn't think there was room for a girlfriend at that stage, and to be honest, I didn't think the girlfriend would want to be with me anyway. I mean, I had no idea what my life was going to be, what would a 17 year old girl who had her whole world and life ahead of her probably have family dreams and all those sorts of things. I never asked her about that at all, I just made the decision probably for her. But yeah, so I broke that up, and it wasn't certainly wasn't easy, but it was done. I guess, then, you know, I sort of started to focus on things I needed to do just in my own life.
I never ever lost those desires to want to be with a woman. My wife always calls me a pest, because I'm always pestering, to be carrying on and all sorts of things (chuckles). The desire never went away, just because my legs weren't working or anything like that, I've still got sensation, things still work down there. There's nothing that has stopped down there. So, you know, I had girlfriends on and off early on, I was still probably trying to find out what that meant, from a wheelchair. So it was sort of, I kind of kept thinking, there were obviously differences because I was now in a wheelchair and I couldn't, we couldn't go skip it all on the beach hand in hand and those sorts of things. So there were the obvious things that were going to be different in a relationship. You know, there was always that stereotype of being the man, you know, you've got to be the bloke who…
Melissa Gough 51:20
The alpha!
Greg Smith 51:21
Yeah, who can look after his wife or his partner the way that a man should do that. I probably still have a lot of those kinds of historical sort of thoughts, I suppose it might be in the back of my mind. But yeah, I met a girl, and it was fun. She was a girl that I'd known as a teenager growing up, then when we started going out. I was probably in my mid 20s, at that stage, got to the stage of getting married. We got married, I was still probably discovering sort of the sexual side of my life, then. So I wouldn't say it was a normal relationship in that regard, sexual sort type relationship. At that time, I was travelling a lot. This was in my athletic career, I was overseas, probably three or four times a year for anywhere up to 10 or 12 days, never for really extended periods. When I go back and think about wheelchair racing, I was probably never away any longer than maybe a week and a half. But it was a fairly frequent interstate and internationally. I guess that was pretty hard on a relationship. We were still both pretty young, I think she was only in early 20s. We'd never had the family kind of discussions, but that was obviously somewhere she would probably want to head towards. I would have been happy to have done the same thing. In the end, it was really hard for her, and she didn't sort of say that it was going to work out that way. So we ended up breaking up and getting divorced.
I was back by myself and girlfriends and things like that. Then I met another girl that got serious again. So now I am in my early 30s. She was just finishing university. So she was really busy at University, I was playing the game, still travelling, doing all those sorts of things. But we had a good relationship, then I think at some point, yeah, again, she got to a point where she was looking in other directions and it just petered out. It sounds very normal, I suppose in normal relationships. There are a lot of things that come into it about, I imagine, from the other side, that being with someone in a wheelchair, that there are things that they probably miss out in life, and I get that I really do. I can see it being quite hard for a lot of people living with and going through a relationship with somebody in a wheelchair. It's not as simple as just, let's just go and do this, let's go and do that. There's a bit of thinking and processes that have to go into, if we want to go on holiday, or if we want to get in the car and go. She's the one that's always going to put the chair and it could be raining. She's gonna lay the chair up all the time, carry the heavy suitcases and do a lot of the big manual labour. So I get that it's not a normal, typical, I wouldn't say fairytale relationship . So even though obviously, though heartbreaking to have relationships break up, they are never great at any time.
Melissa Gough 54:16
True.
Greg Smith 54:18
I suppose I always saw a breakup as being not caused by me, but my situation would have definitely been one of the reasons that were highly considered as a catalyst.
Melissa Gough 54:28
I'm going to add something here because one thing that I've noticed in the last couple of years is that everyone's heard of this person, Dylan Alcott, and his partner Chantelle. I mean, everyone's got their views and there's different schools of thought, but one thing that was wonderful in seeing Dylan and Chantelle do is like, this is how our relationship is and I'm in a wheelchair. There's still so many amazing things we can do. They're just different.
Greg Smith 54:51
That's right. Yeah
Melissa Gough 54:52
But we still succeed.
Greg Smith 54:54
Yeah, exactly. I've been really fortunate about 15 or 16 years ago, you know, I met a girl who was exactly in that frame. She's someone who's caring and giving and loving, and it didn't matter, and it's never mattered. I don't know whether it's because she was sort of working in that environment, when we met, she was a personal carer for a wheelchair rugby player that I was playing with at the time.
Melissa Gough 55:24
Okay
Greg Smith 55:24
So I don't have any personal care at all, like I'm fully independent. So I've never had a carer, look after me in any way. My daily life and things like that and it's brilliant. But it takes a certain person to work in that environment. So Amaya was, you know, obviously someone that had that personality. We met, and we were obviously physically attracted to each other and emotionally attracted to each other, and we connected and we've been together for 15 years, have three boys and we're still soldiering along well.
Melissa Gough 55:56
Bless! You must be just really grateful for them.
Greg Smith 55:59
I absolutely, yeah, for a long time. I never probably considered having kids really, part of having a disability can make it a little tough for some people, not everyone's cut out for it. They thought they were to start with and in the end, you know, it didn't really work out. Where'as Amaya’s just got that temperament and that, you know, she's just a beautiful person who understands and so it's been fantastic. So I was older in my life to have kids, but that's all works out.
Melissa Gough 56:27
Because statistically, the reality is that relationships don't tend to last after quite as significant an event. This traumatic incident can affect everybody and not just the obvious person who happens to. So had Amaya been married before?
Greg Smith 56:46
No she hadn't. Yeah, you'd have to ask her why.....
Greg Smith 56:49
She chose you! (laughter from Greg).
Greg Smith 56:52
But I'll never forget, and her father and mother are still quite open about the fact that, you know, at the time, when she came home and said, "you know, I've met Greg and Greg's in a wheelchair, and they were like, "no way, like, what are you doing?" "This is your future, you got to think about it." As I said to you, I get that, absolutely completely. It takes a certain person to be able to do it. To be honest, if the roles were reversed, I don't know how I would be but I'm glad they're not, and I'm ecstatic that she chose me. In saying that her dad, we had a chat, I think over Easter or something. He reminded me again of the fact that back when we first found out and we were both completely against it, we had tried to turn Amaya off and steer her in a different direction. But now we know you and what the life you've got and the three boys, there's absolutely no way. We are actually quite embarrassed to sort of think that way. So give it a chance!
Melissa Gough 57:48
Give it a chance. Oh, that's funny. I'm going to share that Greg and I have a bit of a six degrees of separation. I actually know Greg's mother in law. Janine, I'm also under really strict instructions that I have to say everything amazing about her.Sorry,
Greg Smith 58:01
You would be! They're both amazing people. They really are great people.
Melissa Gough 58:07
Just hearing you talk about life for you now. it just sounds like such a great space, you're in such a beautiful space. Even though you've retired I'm doing these speech marks because who knows....
Greg Smith 58:07
It's definitely! Not entering back in again!
Melissa Gough 58:14
You're still a consultant mentor with the Australian wheelchair rugby team.
Greg Smith 58:24
Still their strength conditioning coach, physical prep coach. Yep.
Melissa Gough 58:27
So what's happening going forward.
Greg Smith 58:30
So at the moment, yeah, we're in preparation for Paris, which are the next Paralympic Games in 24. There's lead up comps heading up to that. So we've got a World Championships in Denmark later this year. So the guys are all in preparation for that. But yeah, I'm confident in Paris. We're only talking about two years, we'll be back winning that gold medal again.
Melissa Gough 58:50
Well, it sounds like the Australian wheelchair rugby team have really great coaches, and really great consultants and really great specialists to help support them get there. I mean, what you've gone through all your preparation, in the game, out of the game, retiring from the game, you have worn every t-shirt that caters to every type of scenario that the young athletes today can wear, and you can support them.
Greg Smith 59:15
Yeah, well, I hope so, and that's what I'm about. I still train every day in some capacity, because physical fitness and health are still something that's really important to me. You know, I'm turning 55, so, I keep telling my family that, you know, there's only one world record that I'm going for now, and that's old age.! (laughter) I'm targeting when I die, I will die as the oldest person in the world. They say " why are you going to the gym and why do you do this?" I said well, ‘because I've got this, if I want to get to the oldest person in the world, that's what I have to do, I have to look after myself.’
Melissa Gough 59:49
I love it. That's great ambition. I love that ambition! I have not heard that one. That's a first!
Greg Smith 59:55
Well we'll see how we go. You never know.
Melissa Gough 59:57
You never know. And do you know what with that, with that mindset and that attitude I can see you getting there.
Greg Smith 1:00:04
Well, I hope there's still some people around that I know! Where I can say Told Ya!
Greg Smith 1:00:07
So I still train every day, but my main focus these days is obviously my family and where they're going. The kids are growing up. But also to help these new emerging athletes and encourage athletes to to achieve the goals and things that they set in their, in their sporting lives as well.
Melissa Gough 1:00:26
Everything you have shared today, it has been absolutely amazing. You've really laid it all out on the table. And it's funny, you've even answered questions that I thought ‘should I ask that?’ Should I approach that topic and you've laid it all out on the table, which has been amazing, and it's very inspiring for many others. I just want to say thank you for doing that. I'm going to finish off with the one question that I ask everybody. So the name of this podcast is called The Brain Game Changer: where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. If there's one piece of information, one nugget, one quote, what would it be?
Greg Smith 1:01:01
For me, it's always about being, I suppose, true to myself, honest in what I believe. I also really try to be respectful in listening to what other people have to say as well. Everyone has their beliefs, whatever it is, acceptance about everybody and for everybody and give life, everything that you can and the best that you can. You never know when it's not there anymore. I suppose. I mean, I could have given it all up when I was 19 years old, and then missed out on everything in the last 30 odd years.
Melissa Gough 1:01:34
That's really good advice. Thank you so much.
Melissa Gough 1:01:35
You're welcome.
Melissa Gough 1:01:41
I want to thank you for listening to this episode today and supporting The Brain Game Changer and the guests we interview. I hope it adds some reassurance or valuable tools no matter how big or small, they'll continue assisting you in being the wonderful game changer that you are. The best way to support The Brain Game Changer podcast is to like, share with family and friends or subscribe, so each weekly episode is easily available to you. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram @thebraingame hanger. Drop in say hello and check out the regular posts about awareness and education on various important topics and issues. Until next time, I look forward to sharing the space with you again soon. Take care.
