True Patriot Love - November 01, 2026


He Survived Cancer Twice—Then Won Paralympic Gold ft. Andrew Haley

Creatine： What Doctors and Influencers Get Wrong ft. Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky

Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

204.74

Word count

8,017

Sentence count

—


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 What makes you an iconic Canadian? Well, many things, but some people can specialize a little
00:00:10.220 bit. Part of it is overcoming some of the challenges life can present you. This guy
00:00:15.860 survived two childhood cancers. He participated in the Paralympic Games, and he has won Paralympic
00:00:23.640 medals one of them a gold medal representing Canada and speaking with me today is Andrew
00:00:30.300 Haley thanks Andrew I appreciate you taking the time here now did I get any of those stats wrong
00:00:34.560 out of the gate no so far so good so far so good well I appreciate this because you know it's it's
00:00:39.700 interesting to me to understand the life of an athlete uh and you know a para-athlete even more
00:00:46.900 so because you started life or you had a challenge by the time you're entering that world that has
00:00:52.940 maybe been more than most people think they could overcome and now rising to the highest levels
00:00:59.140 uh competing in the world which is an incredible thing on its own but I'd like to understand where
00:01:04.940 that comes from so if you don't mind I'm gonna go right back in time I'm gonna go back to your
00:01:09.680 childhood for a minute and it this is devastating I mean how old were you when you found out
00:01:15.380 as I understand it you had six you had a fall yeah at the age of six right I discovered cancer
00:01:21.240 yeah so we thought it was uh kind of no big deal right like i was playing downstairs in our house
00:01:26.440 my twin brother brett and it was no big deal um after i fell my parents heard a thud a cry and
00:01:31.400 came downstairs picked me up and put me in the family car on the way to the hospital
00:01:35.480 we thought that it was just an ordinary break yeah you know to get to the hospital and then
00:01:39.320 the doctors go look at each other going uh-oh you know and then having to put me in an ambulance to
00:01:44.360 drive me to halifax to the iwk to get the specialists to do tests then you're like really
00:01:49.320 like what is going on here like we're in the eye of the storm which never was there before right
00:01:54.120 and eventually not so many years after that terry fox became a big thing and you're like what's this
00:01:59.400 happening so you know for me to have cancer in my leg osteogenic sarcoma for those who know those
00:02:04.920 terms um and then have the 35 chance to beat it that was unworldly like why is this happening to
00:02:11.720 me to a little boy to a little boy and then being told on my birthday january 16 well before my
00:02:17.480 my birthday week for my birthday in early january i was almost eight years old so it was about a
00:02:21.820 year and a half dealing with the leg they said andrew you have one more chemo treatment left
00:02:25.520 for your your leg and then you can go home and then they came in on my birthday on january 16
00:02:30.500 1982 and told my family and i that the cancer had returned again we thought this was the last
00:02:36.500 treatment and that was in the lungs so another brutal uh you know battle there absolutely yeah
00:02:44.180 This really does replicate the Terry Fox experience in a lot of ways, doesn't it?
00:02:49.540 It really does.
00:02:50.400 I mean, obviously, that's not the way you set it out to be.
00:02:52.940 But, you know, Terry's doing his thing through the early 80s.
00:02:55.980 Me too.
00:02:58.440 You know, the Marathon of Hope starts around when I was dealing with the lung cancer.
00:03:01.740 So I was in the eye of the storm.
00:03:03.680 I didn't know.
00:03:04.320 And then all of a sudden, Terry comes along and, you know, promotes cancer and cancer research and all the phenomenal things he did in his life.
00:03:12.100 but um then i had a choice to make i'm home you talked about early part of my life so i'm home
00:03:17.220 i'm eight years old i've got a prosthetic device that i walk around with and the choice i had to
00:03:22.100 make was either to feel sorry for myself or make something of my life and i decided at that young
00:03:27.220 age that if i was going to overcome cancer twice i was going to make the best of any situation
00:03:32.380 possible i was playing road hockey floor hockey basketball baseball tennis golf you know the list
00:03:37.140 goes on and on and on about sports i if i was in a team sport i was picked last and i and i was okay
00:03:42.140 with that and if i was in an individual sport like golf not very good like horrible actually
00:03:47.820 but i was having fun with it and just and just kind of trying to be a kid um and then eventually
00:03:54.340 things you know trials and tribulations no manual in terms of living with a prosthetic leg with you
00:04:00.540 having cancer twice and then eventually swimming so uh here you are a kid you face trauma
00:04:07.020 life-threatening trauma twice yeah you somehow decided to make the choice at that young age to
00:04:17.140 I guess elevate yourself above all of that and make life uh the best that you could yeah even
00:04:26.680 more so you stayed competitive that's an incredible mindset for a young man what was the support like
00:04:33.520 around you i've got to say that it sounds like you had the right support around you you know i did
00:04:37.840 have the right support around me and i don't want to take away from anybody certainly but i think a
00:04:41.280 lot of it just comes from inside you know i like yeah it was bad that i had cancer twice and and
00:04:47.760 and i lost my leg and you know everything that goes with that i remember walking in snow and
00:04:54.240 it still happens to this day like walking in snow and everybody's like going by me you know because
00:04:59.600 they they have two anchors two legs to anchor them on the snow i have one and i don't want to fall
00:05:05.040 because i don't have enough pressure on my right leg to be able to do that so it was difficult so
00:05:10.960 when you have a disability anybody watching this knows that when you have a disability
00:05:15.600 the world changes you know we need to react adapt you know there's um resilience comes into play
00:05:22.880 resilience is not just a word right when you have a disability it's your life it's sort of the key
00:05:28.240 the the baseline for everything it must be it is the baseline and i just tried to to to be the best
00:05:34.960 i could right not feeling sorry for myself and i don't actually know whether that came i had
00:05:39.760 certainly had support from my family to a twin brother who nobody gave me uh the easy path
00:05:46.640 right and i think that that probably was a good thing yeah and i remember very vividly um and i'll
00:05:53.840 shout out a really good friend of mine joe young back in north sydney days where we started working
00:05:59.040 out when we were like 14 15 years old not knowing the swimming was going to become a thing
00:06:04.560 we were just two friends in the basement lifting weights and trying to be healthy
00:06:10.160 etc etc you know rocky's our favorite movie kind of thing right yeah and then all of a sudden the
00:06:16.000 following year in 1989 when i was turning uh i would have been 15 years old then i suddenly
00:06:22.320 started swimming so i i credit him and that that weight workout early on to help get me going and
00:06:29.360 honestly but when i was in the pool the mindset was i didn't have an artificial leg i was just
00:06:36.640 me swimming back and forth and this is coming from somebody who doesn't like some i don't like others
00:06:41.120 seeing me without without my artificial leg on right but somehow in the pool in that moment
00:06:46.160 I didn't care because I lost myself and the initial start of just learning to swim
00:06:52.920 took precedence over being a competitive athlete. I just enjoyed it so much and I think that's what
00:07:01.140 led to the love affair that I had for so many years. A very quick favor before we continue.
00:07:06.080 A large percentage of you who watch or listen to TPL media every week aren't subscribed yet.
00:07:12.080 Our simple commitment to you is that if you find value there, if these discussions make you think, if you want our uncensored debates, deeper dives, and extended sit-downs, head over to tplmedia.ca and subscribe there directly.
00:07:27.920 It takes just five seconds, costs nothing, keeps you informed.
00:07:32.200 So thank you.
00:07:33.280 Now back to the show.
00:07:34.760 Okay, so now you're in the pool.
00:07:36.080 Yeah.
00:07:36.560 You found a zone in which you feel comfortable just being you.
00:07:39.160 how does it make its way into the competitive world for you yeah i got i kind of got lucky
00:07:45.020 because my a relative of mine knew the national coach for athletes with a physical disability
00:07:49.400 and he gave me a call it was march break of 1989 and asked me if i wanted to do it i declined
00:07:54.980 because i didn't want somebody to see me i didn't like people seeing me without my artificial leg
00:07:58.100 on i didn't feel i'm just going to sound weird i didn't feel like human enough without the leg on
00:08:02.680 wow and um i had the phobia about that right like that poor guy people like oh that poor guy with
00:08:07.860 one leg and then so I'm in the water but then I forgot about all that and it was only about just
00:08:13.280 how great I felt not having the artificial leg on trying my best this is what I was like prior to
00:08:18.440 losing my leg Andrew in the water whatever I had to be better and then I started to just pick it up
00:08:25.280 and then one stroke led to another stroke and then I got a little bit better and it's just like
00:08:30.100 things are going well and I'm going to my first national championships and I'm meddling as one
00:08:34.680 of the best in canada and then it started to be like i started to believe and i really started
00:08:39.780 to believe in 1998 world championships my best placing was 10th but on the plane ride on the
00:08:45.260 way home this voice inside my head said andrew one day you're going to be a champion and that
00:08:50.720 was sort of the the catalyst to be like i believe it i believed it because i saw paraplegics
00:08:56.680 quadriplegic people with one arm one leg dwarfs blind and i knew i belonged in that environment
00:09:02.240 so then with the benefit of hindsight say this is this is this could be a thing i went home and gave
00:09:08.380 everything that i had day after day dedicated to the moment people would say to me andrew you
00:09:14.780 sacrifice so much in your life and my response back would i didn't sacrifice a day in my career
00:09:19.280 because i was building something that i hope one day i didn't know it'd be the podium i didn't know
00:09:24.200 it'd be the top of the podium and the world records the the titles that i won so on and so
00:09:28.180 i'm really fortunate and thankful for that i just knew that every day i was putting one foot in front
00:09:33.860 of the other and let's see what happens it's really interesting to hear you you talk about that uh
00:09:39.860 journey only because it's a simultaneous journey you know you're getting over the embarrassment
00:09:47.460 you get in the pool you feel comfortable you get in the pool you feel so comfortable that you want
00:09:52.500 to achieve something you get to the you know to the world and you come back and you're saying to
00:09:57.780 yourself okay i can do this it almost feels like the unknown moved out of the way for you
00:10:04.740 gave you a runway at doing some of the best stuff you've ever done in your life
00:10:08.660 just by getting there to that point and saying okay when i compete i'm in this i'm in this like
00:10:14.980 everybody else and i i can be here was it that just discovery that you think gave you that
00:10:21.140 confidence as you made your way back home i think when i lost my leg i had it's going to sound kind
00:10:26.340 of strange to say this but i had structure you know medical appointments doctors coming in
00:10:31.620 you know blood pressure everything else i had that structure and then when i went home um i lost
00:10:38.020 structure right every day was different i didn't have like there wasn't any routine kind of thing
00:10:43.620 yeah going to school but that wasn't routine so when i joined swimming i got good structure
00:10:49.780 workouts for certain times i had to be there it allowed me to really departmentalize what i really
00:10:56.180 want it in life right if i was going to go to a workout at 4 40 in the morning i had to go up for
00:11:01.140 5 30 in the in the water then i had to go to bed at a certain time i couldn't watch hockey late at
00:11:06.580 night because i you know maybe my favorite team was playing and i wanted to watch them so there
00:11:10.740 was you could call them sacrifices you can call them moments that i just wouldn't relent you know
00:11:16.740 i wouldn't go to bed late because i didn't want to miss workout the next morning because my thought
00:11:20.260 process was that if i miss workout one of my competitors which wasn't in canada they're not
00:11:25.460 missing their workout they're not missing their workout right so therefore i convinced myself
00:11:30.500 that it was that i just didn't have the choice not to go and once we get in life so much where
00:11:36.900 it's like i'm just going to take one day off i'm training for a triathlon oh i'm just gonna take
00:11:41.460 saturday morning off nobody will know how many times listeners have you heard the saying nobody
00:11:46.180 will know but guess what you know i know and i know that people that are training every time
00:11:50.820 and they're probably in a better situation i am because they're outdoors swimming in a nice pool
00:11:55.220 that they want to go to whereas i'm trying to go to a cold pool in the middle of winter right so
00:12:01.060 the odds are stacked against me because i easily could have taken time off but i didn't you're
00:12:05.460 right that's a dedication a lot that's a lot of nationalities don't have to deal with yeah i
00:12:09.540 remember in calgary i was training calgary for a few years and i took my bike on snowpack streets
00:12:15.300 we don't have that in toronto right we have streets that if there's snow it kind of we tend
00:12:18.740 to lose it yeah but in calgary it's so cold there's snowpack streets and i and i locked my bike up and
00:12:23.860 the the bike lock broke after i got out of workout it was so cold that day cold we're talking like
00:12:29.780 minus 20 minus 30. how do you not get pneumonia in and out of the pool well because i remember
00:12:33.860 saying to my kids you're gonna put your coat on as soon as we left the pool you're gonna get them
00:12:37.540 on yeah yeah well because you're dressed really warm and you you transition yeah and then you
00:12:42.660 know because typically in calgary i was just there for training so i'd go home sleep recover and then
00:12:47.700 back again and that was just that's just if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger that was
00:12:51.620 literally that mentality and i knew that i was good i knew that i was going into a good spot
00:12:58.740 and i wanted that for me but the thing is is that when i came back from that that moment where i
00:13:04.100 said i had the voice inside my head not everybody believed that i was going to be a world champion
00:13:07.940 not everybody believed that i could do it so while i wanted people to to give me confidence to give
00:13:13.220 me a a high five and a fist pump and let's keep going sometimes i had reluctance to support that
00:13:21.300 because they didn't want to see me get hurt and and i almost didn't even continue my swimming
00:13:28.020 life at the start because the people like oh andrew you maybe don't do that you know you might
00:13:33.140 get hurt or you might you might lose and if you lose it can you take it and so on and so forth
00:13:37.940 it could impact you mentally oh it's like you've already been through so much don't do it and then
00:13:42.180 i was like my coach believed in me i believed in me and almost nobody else really gave me that
00:13:47.140 benefit of the doubt and i almost stopped but i didn't stop because it's in here where i wanted
00:13:52.180 to be something truly amazing i didn't know what amazing would be in my keynote speaking i talk a
00:13:57.620 lot about going after your own gold medal moment and gold medal moment doesn't have to be winning
00:14:01.780 a gold medal it doesn't have to be on the podium it has to be whatever your best is and for me i
00:14:08.020 didn't know what my best was but i wanted to give myself every opportunity to be able to go out and
00:14:13.060 find that and and really lock it down well you continue to be the best over and over and over
00:14:19.060 again between 92 and uh you know the the last paralympics uh that you did you pulled a gold
00:14:25.940 medal four bronze you've won three world titles stop me anytime uh and you you had a 35 survival
00:14:35.540 rate based on your illness as a kid it seems to me that you're a pretty strong guy and the people
00:14:43.140 that doubted that really probably didn't do you an injustice they loved you and didn't want to
00:14:48.420 see you go through something i can see that yeah but also the ability to elevate to a competitive
00:14:55.220 place to begin with and then get competitive on a world uh scale i don't think people understand
00:15:02.020 there's another element to this maybe you can talk to you have to finance this yeah there is no huge
00:15:07.940 amount of money that we hand out even to our regular you know to the regular olympic crowd
00:15:13.860 out there in canada there are some groups like jane that puts out funding to the olympics and
00:15:21.060 paralympics but there's very few opportunities for us to support or take care of our athletes and
00:15:30.820 often they're left to their own devices financially you just said you're in calgary
00:15:35.060 yeah who paid for that yeah mostly the bank of mom and dad i mean i was i was federally funded
00:15:39.060 carding uh it's called so i mean it's it's not enough i mean if you want to travel to places
00:15:44.740 then it's hard i mean i got some i got support thankfully from swimming canada and there was a
00:15:49.300 little bit of money there in terms of being able to travel to certain places i remember going because
00:15:53.140 i had some money left in my account to bath england so that was a lot of fun even though i was
00:15:57.620 really sick and that was another challenge like i'm in i'm in a workout where i i should be going
00:16:02.260 to work out and i'm sick as a dog like i'm really sick otherwise i shouldn't have been going but
00:16:06.420 yet i'm going i'm doing the workouts and then like basically like dead the rest of the day
00:16:10.820 from me right so that's just but those things happen like you have sometimes you have to
00:16:14.500 persevere so yes there was challenges along the way thankfully i don't think i ever missed any
00:16:20.260 competitions that i really wanted to go to because of funding you know we kind of made it work in
00:16:24.980 some shape or form um but it's but it's a challenge it was a challenge i i basically um
00:16:31.940 stopped swimming because of funding um you know i would have liked to continue probably for a couple
00:16:36.900 more years but i'd work full-time they're like there's just other other pressures coming in
00:16:41.940 especially when you get into your 30s it's you know maybe the 20s you can play around with it
00:16:45.540 a little bit but when you get into your 30s and it's like you know are you going to get married
00:16:49.060 you're going to have kids like you know there's more responsibilities you know you're not working
00:16:53.620 now so when you get into the work world are you a little bit behind because you didn't work for
00:16:57.620 all those years so i just kind of went with the went with the flow it's funny the thing i never
00:17:03.620 really retired you know i can't say like you just didn't you just didn't you made no official i just
00:17:10.260 didn't show up so next one i was yeah it was hard for me because i it was my life for so long and
00:17:16.740 now i don't swim as often as i used to i love swimming outside um but it's it's for me now
00:17:23.620 know i swim sometimes i'll stop at the end of the pool and have a chit chat with somebody the next
00:17:27.380 lane over and you know i don't really go by the time anymore but you know the joke is the older
00:17:32.500 i get the better i was you know so that's amazing i'm gonna use that so yeah so that that that and
00:17:38.740 that was true right so but but i mean i get now to look back at this gold medal and other medals
00:17:43.780 that i won and just hold that up let's have a look this is beautiful where you want to go uh
00:17:47.620 which camera nick this one there we go yeah so this one is um is in uh sydney australia you'll
00:17:54.180 see the the obviously the opera house and the bridge um a little bit of creative license because
00:17:58.100 if you've been to australia you know that they're not really situated like that they're not far
00:18:02.180 apart not far apart and then but the cool thing is because i grew up in north sydney nova scotia
00:18:07.380 right so i got to go to north sydney australia so that was kind of neat for me too that's quite cool
00:18:12.900 but uh and then on the back of it has a place for engraving but we won this as a relay
00:18:17.540 and the and the really cool thing about winning as a relay is a lot of people may not know this
00:18:22.900 but the word team is an acronym so it's together everyone achieves more and those four guys those
00:18:28.820 three other guys with me being able to do our races you know i swim the 100 meter butterfly
00:18:33.780 the other three guys obviously swim the other three race other three strokes but to win this
00:18:37.700 set a world record um was was a phenomenal way to end an amazing competition in sydney australia
00:18:43.780 they did they did second to none you know the paralympics 2000 tremendous so um a lot of respect
00:18:50.420 for for the organizers and the australian people but then to have this and the funny thing is that
00:18:54.820 i get to do this now yes i won it but i get to show school kids right you know and even even
00:19:00.740 corporate groups when i go speak to corporate groups they're still like kid in a candy store
00:19:05.380 like seeing the gold medal like wow that is really impressive congratulations on that
00:19:09.860 i'm not doing it to show off i'm doing it to we have worlds of possibilities i went back to school
00:19:16.500 when i was 48 i think to take my mba it was a bucket list item of mine and i took it and now
00:19:22.340 now i have it and i think a lot of times i'm too old for this too old for x y and z why why are you
00:19:28.900 too old for xyz you may not go at the same time you went in your 20s or your 30s but you can still
00:19:34.260 be better you can still have your gold medal moment and so that's that was something that
00:19:38.900 people don't realize that experience gives you the best shot at doing things the best you ever
00:19:43.940 did it in your life so you might just do something in your 50s you never dreamt was possible in your
00:19:49.620 20s yeah i mean sometimes you just have to build up to that and take with a grain of salt you may
00:19:53.940 not be as good as you once were but you are trying you're setting a role model for others around you
00:20:00.100 it's just it it that's where it comes from it's not about you we in my keynotes i talk about we
00:20:07.140 cannot control the outcome we can only control the process so you're not going to be able to
00:20:11.540 control whether you were placing you were at a triathlon or a piano recital or dance recital or
00:20:18.740 like whatever you don't control that but the way you control the best you can is you give your
00:20:23.780 effort every single time you outwork everybody else you you have no regrets when you get there
00:20:29.140 and when you finally get behind the block you know people would say to me and oh wow you went
00:20:32.900 sitting in australia how did it go like everybody's screaming for the australians not screaming for you
00:20:37.940 that's true how does that feel and and it's like like i just have i was behind blocks so often at
00:20:43.620 many different pools i swam in that i'm just focused on my lane i'm focused i have i have the
00:20:50.260 right amount of mental capacity to be able to do what i need to do and i get in there and i do the
00:20:55.860 job because i know that the pool in australia newsflash it's the same length as pools in
00:21:02.660 toronto and many different other areas you've seen the movie hoosiers yeah you know what i'm talking
00:21:06.100 about from the basketball court right perspective so that so i knew that there was the same length
00:21:11.460 you you and then i just told myself that they're all cheering for me
00:21:15.620 that just kind of worked out to be honest with you yeah that's why i laugh at my own jokes yeah
00:21:19.780 yeah me too uh now by the way it is a beautiful medal and yes we asked you to bring it because
00:21:25.540 we are like kids in a candy store too yeah but now you've like you say you've turned this into
00:21:31.060 something that's very different than where you began you're sharing these philosophies these
00:21:37.780 experiences the process that it takes that people might not recognize in themselves and you do it
00:21:45.300 through the form of guest speaking yeah fantastic way to do that what are some of the pillars of
00:21:52.580 what you talk about yeah so i talk a lot about um obviously the gold medal moment but resilience
00:21:57.780 making sure that you are um you know you can overcome anything in your life the determination
00:22:04.500 to keep going right and also that we the very big component on teamwork you know whether it's
00:22:10.980 teamwork in sport teamwork in life teamwork in in business you know we have that component like we
00:22:18.260 never accomplished i mean any of the athletes out there who's ever accomplished anything anybody's
00:22:22.180 ever accomplished anything always has somebody backing them up so we kind of go through that
00:22:28.020 and just and making sure that also and the other thing is that life moves so fast and sometimes we
00:22:33.540 need to slow it down so just having mechanisms where we can say okay right life for me was
00:22:39.540 moving really fast when i lost my leg so i was like okay hold on what do i can what can i can
00:22:44.020 control what is it that i'm going to be able to be the best at what am i going to be resilient at
00:22:51.300 and then going into the businesses and really walking them through kind of a process where
00:22:57.140 they can be the master of their own domain you know back in 1992 i was swimming the 400 meter
00:23:03.140 freestyle at the paralympics and i was going in 10th place and in the morning preliminaries
00:23:08.980 um the world record holder the time's really not that important but it was four minutes and 46
00:23:12.660 seconds the world record holder went 446 my best time was 456 somehow i went 446. so i'm second
00:23:19.060 going into finals wow in finals that night there's only a few athletes supposed to win medals iceland
00:23:23.700 norway and journey germany so the story goes so at the 100 meter mark i'm fourth 200 meter mark
00:23:28.660 fourth 300 meter mark i am fourth and that voice comes back in my head and says andrew go now
00:23:34.340 they'll never expect you to go to 300 meter mark but the reality is we're all dying you know we're
00:23:38.260 we're feeling a lot of pain because we have 100 meters left to go right and i was ready to unleash
00:23:44.100 let's call it but then this this negative voice comes in says don't go now if you unleash
00:23:49.620 you could potentially die out not die but you know you could you you took your you shot your
00:23:55.540 shot way too early kind of thing and then this other voice comes says go now allow yourself to
00:24:01.380 be great and we should we all not want that opportunity that we rise to the level of our
00:24:06.340 greatness of our of our of our opportunities instead of falling to the floor of our of our
00:24:12.180 fears so when i talked to and i and then it happened that i got in for an amazing bronze
00:24:17.460 medal but then when i talked about gold medal moment that bronze medal was like oh my god like
00:24:22.580 i was nobody expected me to win this medal so it was it was just every bit as valuable in your
00:24:28.020 spirit world as a gold medal might have been in another day and that's why i try to impart on my
00:24:32.980 audiences is that we have times in our lives that we can rise to the occasion but yet somehow we're
00:24:39.780 not prepared we don't want to we're scared and then and then they just don't right and you and
00:24:46.180 you regret it's funny but i think in all of our lives we do doubt ourselves in moments that are
00:24:52.020 really critical right yeah career school athletics why do you think that happens
00:25:01.940 i don't just human nature i think sometimes it's easier just to think about the negative
00:25:05.060 than the positive but i'm going to give i'm going to give the audience a little bit of a tip
00:25:09.540 so many times when i was competing everything seemed to be at stake you know what if i lose
00:25:15.620 this this is at stake if i if i if i don't you know get to the level where i think i should be
00:25:20.820 then i'm not as good as i once was but what happens if you take a moment and you and you
00:25:25.060 take stock of the things that are not at stake your family your dog your fan your parents your
00:25:31.540 your people at work, whatever the case may be,
00:25:33.980 whoever those groupings are for you that are not at stake.
00:25:37.520 And then when you realize who's not at stake,
00:25:39.860 that gives you foundation to say like,
00:25:41.700 I'm going to try my best here,
00:25:43.220 but if it doesn't go the way I want it to,
00:25:45.080 I hope it does.
00:25:46.240 I know they still have my back.
00:25:48.120 I know that my son or daughter is going to come give me a hug.
00:25:50.600 And I know that my dog's going to lick my face
00:25:52.020 and my friends want me over on a Saturday night to play cards.
00:25:54.360 I know those things are still going to happen
00:25:55.820 and I'm going to be okay with it.
00:25:57.920 Do you want to succeed?
00:25:59.540 Absolutely.
00:25:59.980 but now when you go after what you want to go after it's not as life-threatening because now
00:26:07.360 you know there's some things that are backing you in the corner and i'm going to now compete for
00:26:10.620 them hey before we go any further please hit the subscribe button right now if you want the raw
00:26:16.140 debates the full uncut conversations you won't see here head straight to tplmedia.ca subscribe
00:26:21.780 and lock in your membership trust me you don't want to miss what happens behind the paywall
00:26:26.180 all right back to the show recently uh you know did a little bit of research i kind of went back
00:26:31.720 i think it was a blog post or something on linkedin i went through linkedin anyway um i'm
00:26:36.940 stalking you on linkedin i'm sorry about that but it's better you find out but one of the things
00:26:41.720 that i i got out of one of your posts was that you and you had this experience there's the guy
00:26:48.560 that lost his leg yeah you know there's the guy that had there's that kid who had cancer you know
00:26:54.540 remember that feeling when a kid had cancer in my school yeah we looked at them different like they
00:26:59.420 were walking ghosts i'll be honest a poor thing yeah yeah uh but you refuse to be identified that
00:27:07.500 way to be labeled that way and that you speak about that and that you recognize that i think
00:27:14.460 is really an important thing that you you're sharing with people that you can you you can
00:27:19.900 redefine yourself it's just the effort and the belief to do it i thought that was really powerful
00:27:27.020 is that something you deliver with students or just with groups in general it's
00:27:30.620 or is that even part of your your guest speaking uh package as it were sorry what part of this
00:27:36.940 well sorry the uh the i can go back and re-ask the question because we're really close here
00:27:42.540 sorry nick uh one of the things that i read that you sort of a blog that you'd put up there was
00:27:48.940 that you know you you can redefine yourself to the world you don't have to live by the definitions
00:27:55.100 people placed on you i would imagine something you discovered as a very young man oh look there's the
00:28:00.940 kid who lost his leg there's the there's the kid who had cancer and uh you know we kind of looked
00:28:06.700 at those kids i remember clearly having you know a couple of uh buddies in high in high school and
00:28:12.300 you looked at them like they were ghost walking around us we didn't see them as having huge
00:28:17.820 amounts of potential we just worried about them yeah you redefined that i would imagine for many
00:28:23.260 people around you by redefining that for yourself yeah and you wrote about that recently talk to me
00:28:27.980 more about that yeah thanks so you know in terms of linkedin i really enjoy writing articles um i
00:28:33.900 think it gives a lot of people like motivation so i encourage people if they want to kind of
00:28:38.780 subscribe to my newsletter in linkedin um i really put a lot of effort into them and
00:28:42.940 i think that hopefully a lot of people will see themselves in me
00:28:46.220 but in terms of like the younger years um and again i i didn't want to be defined by
00:28:51.980 the kid with one leg you know it was ironic that during during my swim years my brother
00:28:56.700 was defined as andrew's brother wow the swim the swimmer's brother yeah kind of thing right
00:29:03.180 yeah um i just wanted to be normal you know and i realized i just wrote about this i think
00:29:08.380 yesterday today is that i had no chance of being normal i had no chance of really fitting in
00:29:14.540 you know what do you do with one leg you know i i'm i'm different than everybody else
00:29:19.020 so you just make the best of the situation that you can make you know what's dating like you know
00:29:25.740 there's so there's many different facets of of you know the deck wait wait wait andrew what's dating
00:29:32.780 like yeah well it was you know ironically in terms of my career um i was so quote unquote married to
00:29:41.340 the pool that there really wasn't time in the early years into my 20s you know i remember
00:29:48.940 one time i was dating this girl it was in 1994 and commonwealth games were in uh in victoria
00:29:56.220 i just i was allowed to take like a week off um and i took a week off and we went here to toronto
00:30:02.460 stayed with some relatives saw phantom of the opera it was amazing um and then i didn't really
00:30:08.460 study for a test and i got an f in my exam through university and then i told myself you know i can
00:30:15.180 only do a certain number of things right you know i could do swimming right i can do school right
00:30:23.260 i can't do like i can't do um social life right there's i i i i'm in pa it's impossible for me
00:30:30.780 to do all three well so and i wanted to really focus all three heavy loads heavy loads right
00:30:37.100 so i it was just difficult because you know she may want to go out on a friday night i can't
00:30:42.140 right right she may want to hang out on saturday while i'm sleeping in because i got workout so
00:30:46.300 it's just that dynamic early on didn't work um which ironically i met my way through swimming
00:30:51.900 so that was kind of worked out but i think that it's just i just wanted to be normal knowing that
00:30:57.980 full well that i wasn't actually going to achieve that um but i had some really great friends and
00:31:04.140 um who who who gave me a lot of support ironically back in those 80s and 90 years 1980 1990s
00:31:13.580 knowing somebody with a disability is way different than it is right now you know knowing
00:31:17.100 somebody back then it was like you almost need to help them you poor dear you're not capable
00:31:22.940 you know nowadays and nobody really knew who the paralympics were nowadays the paralympics are
00:31:28.220 celebrated oh you have a disability or you you're not disabled you're you're you're able-bodied
00:31:35.180 with a with a slight limitation the narrative switched it almost feels like you have limitations
00:31:41.340 doing this therefore you have superpowers yeah actually you know what i mean i think i think a
00:31:46.860 lot of people you're right people have actually redefined what that feels like to have a friend
00:31:53.820 who's disabled in any way yeah uh it's funny because if you grow up and i bet you had friends
00:31:58.860 that you grew up with that just don't even think about it right they don't and and that's the thing
00:32:02.860 like i think about it sometimes but they like doesn't even cross their mind even to the point
00:32:09.100 sometimes where my wife forgets what leg it is you know so it's like it's just it's just not in the
00:32:15.900 psyche of of part of the conversation anymore but that's because of what you did with you
00:32:21.820 that we don't see that at all no because i think i think if you lead with confidence
00:32:28.140 if you leave with it's not a big deal to me why is it a big deal to you then people are like oh
00:32:32.380 you're right it's not a really big deal to me either but if you lead with i'm kind of shy i
00:32:36.940 don't want to show and it's a big deal to me then you'll be like i know i know it must suck so what
00:32:42.700 that's a sign of strength though to be able to get past that shame to get past that
00:32:46.860 self-doubt and be like okay this is me now so yeah i mean there was times where it bothered me but
00:32:54.540 you know my parents like oh andrew your legs clicking so what i don't care like i just don't
00:32:58.300 care i'm old enough now it's like i'm just gonna live my life the best i can and and try to take
00:33:04.460 the platform that i've been given as a speaker to be able to go into the places that i've been able
00:33:09.980 to go into and share the message of everything that i've overcome and putting it in a way that
00:33:15.980 is relatable to people because the reality is they don't know what it's like to win a
00:33:19.660 paralympic gold medal they don't know what it's like to win world championship they don't know
00:33:22.300 what it's like to lose your leg part of your lung they don't know but the story has to be relatable
00:33:27.820 and by the end of the conversation like i just did a hospital foundation gala in sudbury a couple
00:33:34.060 weeks ago i got a standing ovation at the end of it and i was very humbled by it but it's because
00:33:39.980 that how much effort and time i took to get to know the audience so by the time i'm doing the
00:33:43.980 presentation you were relating to relating directly to them and what they would understand
00:33:50.220 and that was what worked uh listen i i don't want to keep you and i will i would love it
00:33:56.300 if you came back because there's going to be topics that we address here on an ongoing basis
00:34:00.620 that have to do with the human condition here in canada of which i think you probably have a very
00:34:06.220 good perception of having traveled a lot of canada but also having elevated as a representative of
00:34:12.460 our country yeah on an international uh basis which is in itself impressive but if you don't
00:34:18.140 mind before you go there was one story i wanted you to tell so you're in barcelona you get a bronze
00:34:24.380 yeah you go to sydney you get a gold yeah and then you set a world record while you're working full
00:34:30.780 time take that one capsule of life and describe for us what it took to go from bronze to gold
00:34:39.820 to setting a world record in that short time frame uh so that would have sorry that would
00:34:46.780 have been in uh bronze to gold so 92. i think that we we we try to push ourselves the best we can
00:34:56.380 um the the bronze medal was a shock obviously you know in that in that moment a shock but it also
00:35:03.740 was an intent a confidence booster um it kind of did ignite yeah that extra flame but no pun intended
00:35:12.620 but many see what i did there nick flame okay forget it but but many years you know after that
00:35:17.900 it was just trying to you get in with trying your best whatever your best is and you know being able
00:35:24.700 to win a gold medal after so many years of trying whether it's paralympics or whether it's world
00:35:29.740 championships i mean i'm lucky to have won gold medal at commonwealth games paralympics world
00:35:34.220 championships um it's just it's just that do it take a day off after it's done and start working
00:35:43.180 on it for the next time wow because it's not easy right right to be able to go back to the top of
00:35:47.900 the mountain it's not easy so in that moment um again you don't control the outcome you just
00:35:57.260 control your effort and your you know what you do so i was like gonna like one time i broke the world
00:36:02.380 record into an individual medley i finished second because the person who beat me went faster than me
00:36:07.260 and also broke the world record so there's going to be there's going to be moments that's a pretty
00:36:11.580 interesting but we keep moving forward as long as we keep moving forward and we keep believing
00:36:17.260 that's the thing like you need to believe that you can accomplish it 110 if there's any doubt
00:36:24.220 then you got to ask yourself whether you're in the right business you have to believe in it every
00:36:28.300 single step of the way and in terms of your question about you know coming back i would love
00:36:31.580 to come back and i would even go one step further that if there's anybody watching that says
00:36:35.740 something that maybe they want to hear us talk about please let's throw it out there yeah and
00:36:40.060 then maybe they'll contact your show and i'll come back and we'll address that too also if you'd like
00:36:44.380 andrew to uh come and speak to your group please don't hesitate he's a a really good speaker and
00:36:50.940 And I'll put the information in the description for the show.
00:36:57.080 In closing, let me just ask you this.
00:37:00.480 If there was one thing you could say to young Andrew at that moment
00:37:04.760 when you found out that you were going to lose a leg,
00:37:07.840 what was the one thing as an angel coming into that room
00:37:10.460 that you would have said to yourself?
00:37:11.680 Well, one thing I said to myself, and this is fact, is goodbye toes.
00:37:15.660 You know, I knew I was losing them.
00:37:17.040 and uh it's it it's hard because i i knew that in that moment they they prepared me for for losing
00:37:23.580 it but i think that in this in in the how bad that was and how much it really affected me in
00:37:31.300 terms of losing my leg at the point in time um i think i think it's like you lost your leg but
00:37:37.920 you didn't lose your life you lost your leg but you didn't lose your hope you lost your leg but
00:37:41.920 you didn't lose the desire to be the best you possibly can be you know while you got dealt
00:37:47.020 bad hand you are still able to do many great things in life and I would dare say that those
00:37:55.740 people and this is true like when I remember working when I worked for the Toronto Blue Jays
00:37:59.980 for many years and I remember after workout one day and I took the streetcar down Spadina and I
00:38:05.060 got off at Bremner and I was walking across and there was a little bit of a decline and I'm kind
00:38:10.400 like whoa whoa and people are going by me like it's nobody's business and i i kid you not my
00:38:16.800 mindset was they're going by me like it's nobody's business but did they ever won a gold medal at the
00:38:21.360 paralympics world championships come both games set world records been to the places i've been to
00:38:25.760 the answer is no and i switched it to you know what we all have our story and that's that's the
00:38:32.240 amazing thing about life you know we've i've shared mine today i'm happy to do that but everybody has
00:38:37.440 their story right and i'm just trying to be as positive as i can be to impact wisdom on others
00:38:44.160 so they can continue living their best life too well you have uh laid out a life for yourself that
00:38:49.040 is inspirational thank you for representing us so well around the world so many times
00:38:53.760 and for being an inspiration to canadians uh you know who really don't know that they can
00:38:59.920 do the things that they want to do absolutely thanks for having me thanks andrew
00:39:07.440 You