#112 ‘Lucky’ with Ed Jackson

4th Aug 2021

For someone who was playing as a professional rugby player at the highest level for over 10 years to then suffer a serious accident that left them paralysed from the neck down, you wouldn’t expect for them to consider themselves ‘lucky’.

In April 2017, after diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool, Ed Jackson broke his neck and suffered a spinal cord injury which left him paralysed from the neckdown. Doctors said that he would never walk again … but through sheer determination and intensive rehabilitation, Ed reached the summit of mountains within a year of his operation. A feat not even the most optimistic of medical professionals could have ever imagined.

I learnt so much  from Ed on today’s pod. His attitude to consistently challenge himself, both mentally and physically, his ability to reframe even the most difficult of situations that enables him to see the positives and ultimately his humility. We talk about his specific traumatic event and aspects of his mental journey as well as the physical, and how stoicism, reframing his mindset and ‘painting his life with appreciation’ led to recovery.

Ed’s new book Lucky is the story of how he faced the impossible when it seemed all hope was lost. And Ed shows how you, too, can overcome the biggest challenges that life sends your way.

Ed has since gone on to conquer many  mountains, start his own charity millimetres2mountains.org/ and has been listed to present the Paralympic games in Tokyo on Channel 4.

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