#30YearsRolling [21/30] Reflections on the 30th anniversary of my injury
One of the best parts of getting involved in sport again were the communities that I found myself part of. There was the athletics club, the training squad, the physio practice, the gym I did my personal training sessions in and the group of women around the world who were in my athletic classification I’d connected with via Facebook.
I didn’t realise how isolated I had been feeling after leaving my job before getting into sports. Work had been a big part of my socialising. I was living in a regional area with no accessible public transport and most of my family and friends were back in Sydney.
Other than going to the gym twice a week, I spent most days at home alone at my desk unless I was out speaking, at a workshop or networking which often wasn’t for weeks at a time.
Having my ecosystem broadened so much through sport helped me to get better at valuing my achievements and seeing where I needed help to continue to level up.
It was through one of my networks that I was encouraged to apply for a grant to support my sports goals from Layne Beachley’s Aim For The Stars Foundation (AFTS). The purpose of the foundation was to support high achieving women with mentoring, community, and financial support to become even greater in their field of excellence.
As an elite athlete, Layne was juggling several jobs with training to fund her travel around the world to compete and didn’t want other young women to struggle the way she did. It was one of her employers who gave her a cheque to help her achieve her goals that spurred the idea to pay that forward.
It was a funny feeling applying for the grant. Layne was someone I had admired for years, and it was still an odd feeling identifying myself as an athlete when I was filling in the form. I also had to get two references to support my application for the “Senior Athlete with a Disability” grant. The process of applying for things like these are great experiences in articulating and celebrating the great things you have achieved.
Seeing the references support this was a proud moment: “Stacey has shown us all the qualities required by an athlete to perform at the very top and I have complete confidence that she will achieve great things in her athletics career.”
“Being the only T51 track chair athlete in the country, Athletics Australia are very interested in Stacey and her potential, particularly as the event will be offered for the first time at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games.”
After applying I put it out of my mind, not wanting to put too much energy into planning ahead as if I had gotten a grant and then ended up disappointed or not wanting to beat myself up thinking I had no chance and energetically sabotaging my chances.
I was in the bathroom one afternoon when my phone rang. I always had my phone with me, in a pocket of my backpack which hung over the back of my wheelchair. I had a look at my phone and saw it was an unfamiliar mobile number, so I let it go through to voicemail.
When I listened to the message it was a voice I instantly recognised even before she had identified herself. It was Layne. She enthusiastically congratulated me on being selected to receive a grant and welcomed me to the foundation and asked me to call her back.
I was home by myself but couldn’t contain my excitement, I fist pumped the air, let out a loud “holy shit!” and did a bit of a happy dance. Then I took a moment to compose myself before calling her back. I thought I would get her assistant or an answering service, but Layne answered herself. Surely, she wouldn’t have given us all her mobile number? Yet she did.
I didn’t realise at the time just how significant that conversation and being welcomed into the “sisSTARhood” was going to be. At the time the grant was $3,000 plus a few days in Sydney for me and a friend to take part in a series of workshops with Layne and other mentors, a surfing lesson with Layne (I was happy to stay on the shore and watch that one), and an evening at the annual gala ball where we had our hair and makeup done and got to rub shoulders with our fellow grant recipients along with supporters of the foundation which included some of Australia’s biggest companies and high profile people.
My best friend Jen came with me for the trip. What was extra special about that was that she lived in Sydney and rather than meet me there, she flew to Adelaide to travel with me. We’d been friends for almost twenty years, but we’d never travelled together before then.
Getting to our hotel and meeting the other women was a fabulous experience. Lots of hugs and shouts of encouragement. While most of us were meeting for the first time, there was a feeling in the room that we already knew each other.
There was an action-packed itinerary for the couple of days and it was such a whirlwind that it was almost surreal. The workshops gave us great direction and valuable skills to better ourselves. The gala dinner, surfing lessons and a morning tea at Government House with the Governor General and his wife were amazing networking opportunities both with our peers and influential people.
The financial component of the grant was a great help to buy a rowing machine to use for working out at home and to cover the travel costs to compete at nationals that year. More valuable though was the connections forged through both the couple of days together in Sydney and the nurturing of relationships beyond that.
I was so compelled by my experience that year that I began to donate 5% of my sales to AFTS. There was part of me that wanted to pay it forward, initially I wanted to donate the equivalent of the $3,000 I had received to the foundation within 12 months and then do that every year. I did challenge where that was coming from. At first, I realised it was a feeling of being uncomfortable that someone had given me money that I didn’t feel like I had earned (a recurring theme in my life.)
I then shifted that to a place of primarily feeling passionate about giving more women the opportunity I had. I was asked to become an ambassador for the foundation, something I was excited and honoured to do.
The following year when they assigned each grant recipient a mentor for a year, I happily took on that role.
Years later, even after Layne made the difficult decision to wind up the foundation (after supporting 500 women over 15 years with $1 million in scholarships), I still have wonderful relationships with women I was fortunate to meet via Layne’s vision.
I have been involved in many communities over the years, mostly in the business niche, many of them for women only. None of them come close to the experience I had with AFTS.
The genuine mutual admiration society was unique, especially when it comes to women. Within this group we were inspired by each other, cheered each other on, always had each other’s back and you knew that you could pick up the phone at any time and would have the support and resources you needed.
Layne has remained accessible and a cheerleader to us all even years beyond our time with AFTS.
The friendships that started within that group have lasted beyond the life of the foundation too. One of my mentees Hannah is a valued friend now who I speak with regularly. Hannah is a multiple time Paralympian in swimming and cycling, a PhD in Athlete Wellbeing. Her optimism and humour are magnetic.
The most significant of those friendships though has been with Jemma.
She came into the community a couple of years after me receiving a grant for her work as a documentary maker, and we met at the annual workshop where I’d been asked to come and speak to the new grant recipients. Her energy and passion were contagious, she buzzed around the room after the session I was part of getting selfies with us – at the time I had no idea who she was!
Fast forward a couple of years and we were going to events and concerts, dreaming up crazy ideas together and eventually I was thrilled to be able to hire Jemma as my assistant for speaking engagements.
Her skills as a film maker, storyteller and networker have been a huge part of my success over the past few years that we’ve been working together. I say often she’s as close to cloning myself as it gets when it comes to supporting me at gigs. Really though, she does a better job than I do of working a room, getting people enthusiastic about what I do and connecting people in a passionate and thoughtful way.
Support is an important principle of my framework of resilience and the AFTS community has been important for my success. Support isn’t one way traffic though and being able to support others in this community was a beautiful by product of feeling part of a positive tribe.
The song that best represents this time is “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” – Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin.