My Way, or the Mountain Top?

I have a bit of a reputation for doing things "My Way". Sometimes, it's a good reputation, other times it's not.

I believe it stems from being born disabled, and spending a large portion of my life proving people wrong. Wrong about what I was capable of doing, whether it be crossing a tree bridge, playing basketball, or spending my life in a wheelchair. Wrong about their perception of me, that I was somehow less of a person because I 'walked funny'. Amazing how many people see someone with a physical disability, and decide it equals a mental challenge as well.

Over the years, the attitude expanded to include teachers, bosses, friends, family members, and even coaches. If I didn't like what they were saying, I assumed they didn't get it. Didn't understand me, didn't believe in me.

Frankly, its worked for me. I've been successful in the jobs I've decided to be successful in. I have a beautiful wife and six great kids. I've been to the World Championship of Public Speaking twice. I've co-written three books, and helped my wife launch her first book. And, my biggest victory of all, I'm still walking, even after opting to let go of my atrophied lower left leg in favor of my self-proclaimed 'Super Deluxe Robot Leg'.

Until now.

Last Monday, I started physical therapy, ostensibly to treat the sudden onset of Sciatica that started just before Thanksgiving. Initially I had gone to a local Urgent Care, who prescribed steroids and vicodin. A week later, I was out of pain, but only for a few weeks. I went in again just after Christmas, and left with yet another prescription. This time, it only worked for a week, and by the end of the first week of January, I was again battling a combination of Sciatica and intense back pain - not a good mixture.

I've gotten prescriptions for PT before, but only once had I followed through. The result was one visit, with the therapist giving me exercises to do at the local gym, which I had a rarely-used membership to at the time. Epic fail, as my kids would say.

This time I forced myself to go. I didn't even accept another prescription for pain killers, because they weren't working, and frankly, addiction to anything other than Ben & Jerry's doesn't set well with me.

My first three sessions last week were interesting. I was again given exercises to do. The therapist mentioned adjusting my sacrum, and that I'd been walking wrong for so long, its a wonder I could walk at all. My left leg (what's left of it) is 5 centimeters smaller in diameter than my right, which has been compensating for 42 years for the weakness of my left. Even now that my legs are the same size with the prosthetic, my left 'kicks out' out of habit, and the lack of muscles in the right places.

In addition to the 'physical' therapy, there was 'motivational' therapy, as she started telling me about behavior modification, the need for my buy-in and commitment, and lots of other concepts that I tell other people all the time, but oftentimes find difficult to live by, as anyone whose followed this blog can attest.

Who motivates the motivator? Particularly one who's prided himself on doing it 'his way' his entire life?

I was frustrated, though, because it felt like nothing was being done for the pain. The therapist said the pain is a result of the way I walk, and until we build up my left leg, the pain will not only continue, but get worse. I went home after my third session with orders to exercise three times a day, walk with crutches, and crawl in the house as often as possible. This did not set well with me.

After so many years working to stay off crutches, after so much time crawling in 2006 when my leg stopped working, leading me to the decision to amputate, how was I supposed to lower myself back to that level? The goal was for me to walk without pain. I was used to limping - if I defiantly didn't care if I had to limp the rest of my life. That's what I'm known for, after all - it's part of my identity, and oddly, my Self-Defined Success.

For the four days between PT visits, I did about half a day's worth of exercises. No crutches. No crawling, other than those 3 am trips to the bathroom when trying to put a leg on is a dangerous endeavor.

Ok - it wasn't as bad as being yelled at by Sue Sylvester

This morning, I showed back up at PT, without crutches, and was given the riot act. Rightfully so. The therapist again explained the process. She asked me what I was afraid of. She told me that if I did what she told me to do, I would see progress. She also said it wouldn't work if I didn't want it to as much as she wanted it to work for me.

I could hear myself saying the same types of things to various speaking clients, and to audiences from the stage, over the past few years. What was I supposed to say back? I just nodded, said yes ma'am, and proceeded to do the exercises on the floor mat. As I looked up into the fluorescent lights, and tried to raise my weak leg in the air, I knew I was at a crossroads. More accurately, I decided I was at a crossroads.

I could either keep doing what I've always done, and continue to live with a limp, live with pain, and perhaps even end up in further debilitating pain - or I could listen to someone who was telling me I had to change the way I was living and the way I was thinking.

On the drive home, I started to take my thinking a bit further. Over the years, I've gotten a lot of advice. Some of it solicited, some of it not, but still supplied by well-meaning individuals. While I've always had a tendency, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post (getting a bit long-winded, so I figured I better remind you), to do things my own way, it has gotten worse over the last 5-7 years. I see many of you nodding vigorously.

The Library of Congress has nothing on me.

What if I should have been listening more? What if, perish the thought, other people were right? What, if instead of building what is lovingly called on my external hard drive "The world's biggest self-help library" of mp3's videos, and .pdfs, I focused on just one of them, and actually followed through? Instead of just listening and thinking, "Yeah, I'll think about it, and maybe apply a concept or two," I actually followed the program step by step, and, as my physical therapist says, retrained my muscles and replaced my behaviors?

Then I answered her question in my own mind, and began to form this post. What am I scared of?

I'm scared of being wrong. Of having wasted all this time, all this effort. Of wasting the last 42 years of my life doing things out of prideful determination instead of educated persistence. Scared that if I change now, its too late anyway.

Those fears feel real, even though I know they are not. I can poke holes in each one of them, as easy as popping a soap bubble. The past is the past, and its led me to right now, and all I can deal with is right now anyway. Every experience I've had will help me in the future, even if its just learning from my mistakes. And, as my friend, and 2003 World Champion of Public Speaking, Jim Key once famously signed in his victorious display of persistence, "It's never too late to follow your dreams."

If you've made it this far, you may be ready to ask yourself some of the same questions. What if you retrained your muscles and your mind? Replaced your behaviors? What are you scared of?

And the most important question of all - what is standing in the way of your Self-Defined Success? It's you, of course. But it may, as mine did, go deeper. It may be what your definition of Success is in the first place, and your Choice of how to get there.

Now what? Where do I go, where do you go, from here? And HOW?

I've decided it's OK if I've been wrong. I'd rather have been wrong the first 42 years than wrong the next 42 years as well. I've decided to listen to my physical therapist, and follow through - which means I've decided to start walking more normally than I ever have, even though my body, right now, has no idea what that is like.

I've also decided to start seeking more advice - even advice I may not agree with, or feel comfortable with, and start following through. Because I'm tired of limping through life - in more ways than just physically.

I have had my share of victories. I've had a great life by many measures. But to get to where I want to be, it's time to change the way I'm getting there. A car won't get you to Everest. A plane won't get you to the Moon. If I have to change "My Way" to "My Better Way Based on Other Ways", so be it.

He's been where I want to go, and is no doubt still there.

I'd rather get to the Mountain Top, and thank those who helped me get there, than spend the rest of my life with blinders on, taking satisfaction in climbing hills; living forever in the shadows of my goals, with only myself to blame.