When you have climbed a mountain on your hands, people tend to listen when you tell them anything is possible.
They were listening Monday at Bishop Macdonell high school as motivational speaker Spencer West spoke, and showed, about redefining the possible.
West, a Wyoming native now living in Toronto, had his legs amputated at the pelvis when he was five due to a rare genetic disorder.
He hasn’t let that stop him from accomplishing a wide range of things others told him he could never do, from helping his high school cheerleading team win a state championship to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro largely on his hands.
The talk was put on by the Bishop Macdonell family of schools, the high school and its four feeder schools, and was attended by roughly 125 people.
West used various examples on his life to focus on three points that are key to redefining the possible: finding the lesson, asking for help and creating social value.
His own life underwent a dramatic change in 2008.
Working as a manager at an Arizona spa, he decided to seek something more meaningful and joined charitable trip to Kenya.
It was small village when a young girl stared at his missing legs and said, in Swahili, “I didn’t know this sort of thing could happen to white people too.”
West said that one moment changed his whole life journey and it wouldn’t have happened had he not reached out to others looking for something more meaningful.
“Those children helped me way more than I helped them,” he said.
He said that led to him becoming an ambassador for social change and he eventually moved to Toronto to join Craig and Marc Kielburger’s non-profit ME to WE social change organization.
West urged those in attendance to ask for help when they need it, that it is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with two friends saw him rely on them for motivation and physical assistance over the eight-day climb, and also saw him give his altitude-sick friends comfort and motivation to carry on.
None of it would have happened had I not asked for help and had I not offered help,” West said. “A true leader knows when to ask for help.”
West’s talk included video of him tumbling across the mat as a cheerleader, walking 300 kilometres to raise money and awareness to raise money for clean water in Africa and documentary footage of him climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.
West’s “find the lesson” moment came when a friend criticized him for using handicapped parking spots.
“You are the least handicapped person I know,” he remembered the friend telling him.
“I thought, ‘she’s kind of right,’” West said.
He said that one of the biggest challenges he faced with his handicap was showing people what was inside, not outside, that mattered and that by parking in handicapped spots he was reinforcing stereotypes.
“The challenge my whole life was getting people to see past this,” he said of having no legs. “Sometimes that’s up to me.”
He said everyone is going to face challenges, the key is to look at them as lessons to be learned.
“We all have the strength to find lessons in challenges,” West said.
He urged the students in the audience to help make the world a better place and create social change.
“I view school as new knowledge to take to my community and make my community a better place,” he said.
“I set out not to be an inspiration, but to make a difference.”
