John Maclean

Consider me inspired.

I had the pleasure of attending a talk by John Maclean earlier today. John is a paraplegic. He has lost the use of his legs when a truck hit him in 1988 and has been wheelchair bound since. Before his accident, John was a rising rugby star and a promising athlete. After his accident, John has become arguably one of the most impressive people on the sporting scene.

In 1995, John became the first wheelchair athlete to complete the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii. Unfortunately, he missed the cutoff time and was not awarded an Ironman Finisher's medal. In 1996, he almost made the cutoff time, but was screwed over by a flat tire. He beat Hawaii in 1997 and became the first wheelchair athlete to be awarded the finisher's medal. He finished 946th out of 1421 able bodied athletes.

In 1998, he became the first wheelchair to swim the English Channel.

In 2000, he represented Australia in the Paralympic Games.

His list of incredible accomplishments go on and on. As recently as last year (2005), John became the first wheelchair athlete to complete the Molokai Challenge. But superhuman feats aside, what really got to me was hearing him describe the pain of being up there on top of the world and having everything taken away from you in a single split second, and then crawling back up inch by inch.

A few memorable things he said...

After he lost his legs, he wanted to be equal in his own eyes. And to do that, he had to be more than equal. Does that make sense? To me, it did. I wonder though, how "equal" are you when there are only a handful of people in the world who have completed the Hawaiin Ironman AND swum the English Channel, and none of them are wheelchair bound?

His formula for success was simple - 1) set a goal, 2) surround yourself with a positive team, and 3) work backwards to figure out how to get there.

It started out as his own quest to be "equal", but became, in his words, upon crossing the channel, "Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but I hope today I've won for all the little boys and girls around the world in wheelchairs. If they need someone to look up to, hopefully they've got someone to look up to now."

Overall, I was inspired by his feats, but even more so by his uber-positive attitude. That's definitely something to aim for.