Paralympian and wheelchair tennis champion || By Dylan Alcott

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I remember when we were kids we used to always fight over the remote control for the television now Zack and I we used to share a bedroom at the very back of the house and when Mom would wake us up Zach would get up on his feet run down the hallway get to the loung room pick up the control and thus have the power now I cannot tell you how much this used to annoy me so what I would do is I'd wait for Zach to go to the bathroom I'd crawl over to the couch I'd pick up the control and then finally the power would be mine but after a while Zach realized what I was doing so whenever he got up to go to the bathroom he'd pick up the control he'd go in the kitchen he'd put it on top of the fridge where I couldn't reach it he'd look at me and smile he'd come back go to the bathroom come back pick up the control and act act like nothing had ever happened now I asked this I tell this story to people and I asked them do you think that's a good or a bad thing that my brother used to do this to me and everyone always says to me oh you know what it was a bad thing he was probably taking advantage of your disability you know what at the time I would have agreed with you was a bit of a jerk move by his part but in retrospect I reckon it was the best thing that my brother ever did to me it would have been very easy for Zach to Simply go you know what I feel sorry for my poor sick disabled brother who'll never be able to walk again I'm going to give him whatever he wants but Zach thought you know what stuff that I don't care that Dylan's in a wheelchair I'm going to treat him like any other little brother and it made me realize that if my brother doesn't care that I was in a wheelchair then why the bloody hell should I care that I'm in a wheelchair and if my brother didn't treat me any differently it meant that I didn't expect to be treated any differently by anybody else and it was this mentality that my family taught me at a young age to really focus on the things that I could do and not to be scared of my disability but rather embrace it and because of that I've lived a truly incredible life in 2008 I was lucky enough to win a gold medal at the 2008 paral Olympic games uh in Beijing playing mchair basketball now for anybody that doesn't know the par Olympics is the Pinnacle of Elite Sport for people with a disability but a lot of people don't actually know the true meaning of the word paralympic the word is actually split in two there's the Olympic part which obviously means the Olympics the Pinnacle of Elite Sport and the parpart now there's a common misconception that the parap part actually means paraplegic or paralyzed but this isn't the case it actually represents the word parallel meaning the par Olympics runs parallel or alongside the Olympics every four years in the same venue with the same Elite Sports with the same Elite Sports Stars competing for the same gold medals the only difference is that at the par Olympics everybody has a disability and his heap's better looking as well um now now Beijing was an incredible experience for me to be 17 years old and to sit on top of that Podium with 12 of your best mates some guys that had lost limbs to cancer other guys that had lost limbs in work safe accidents other guys who had had car crashes and lost loved ones and could never walk again to sit on top of that Podium singing the National Anthem with tear in our eyes it was the most awesome thing I've ever experienced and I cannot tell you how amazing that feeling was of how proud We were of each other at what we have achieved uh I'm also a massive music fan and I've been I've been I've been very lucky to travel around the world to a bunch of different music festivals getting a bit of a name for myself as the dude that crowd surfes in his wheelchair at festivals now to be perfectly honest with you the the first time that I did this was completely out of necessity as I was sick and tired at looking at all your asses all day in the mosh pit it got old very quickly but from the first moment that I did it I was absolutely hooked there's an AB it's an absolutely incredible feeling being on top of that crowd in what I like to call the best seat in the house and I think I think these photos are a really cool metaphor for what people with disabilities can really do you know breaking the mold and doing what's unexpected of them uh I also have a beautiful girlfriend Kate who I love dearly now I know what you're thinking Dylan mate you are batting way above your average and you know what I definitely am but to be honest with you Dayton narana wheelchair has its perks as well Kate now now gets a seat everywhere she goes it doesn't matter if she wears high heels or flats she's always going to be taller and whenever we go shopping together Kate never has to look for a car park again as there's 25 disabled spots just waiting for us at the front door I must say though it is always funny when Kate and I walk down the street in Richmond where we're from holding hands and people the amount of people that actually stop and stare at us is incredible I mean people look at us walk past and actually Double Take probably thinking man where did that guy in the wheelchair get such a sexy nurse from and why the hell are they holding hands she doesn't want to catch disabled off him now when I reflect on my life it always makes me wonder why so many people always come up to me telling me that they feel sorry for me I wish I got a dollar every time I was at a bar or a pub and someone came up to me and said mate it's so good to see you out here tonight like it must be so hard for you to be here like I have leprosy and I've never been out of bed before now these people are just being nice they're not being rude at all and it's not their fault that they think that I live this crappy bad unlucky life but the reason that they do is because they've probably never seen or interacted with somebody with a disability before and the only thing they know about disability is The Stereotype that having a disability is this really bad hard unlucky thing and that people with disabilities are less capable because of their impairments and to be honest with you it's just not true there are tens of millions of people around the world with disabilities that are absolutely loving life and succeeding in ways that you could never imagine and as my job as a paral I've been able to see so many of these people firsthand I remember one guy at the Beijing Paralympics uh really stood out for me I walked into the food Hall at the village and this guy right he was carrying his tray of food with his mouth I was looking at him thinking like like what's this guy doing like why is he use his arms like who's he trying to impress anyway I had a closer look and this guy had no arms from the shoulders down so nothing and I was like how's this guy going to eat his food just like face plan in his food like honestly had no idea so anyway I followed him to where he was going to sit so I could watch him eat then I sat down the guy put down his plate of food with his mouth and he started taking off his shoes and he picked up a pair of chopsticks with his toes you know the kind of Chopsticks you get at your local Chinese restaurant anyway he picks them up with his toes he unwraps the paper with his toes he cracks the Chopsticks open his toes he puts the Chopsticks between his toes on his right foot and starts feeding himself his rice with his feet now when everyone in the room no excuses except me cuz I'm a paraplegic to put your hands above your head as hard as you can hands up everyone and put your right foot to your mouth without bringing your hands [Applause] down pretty hard yeah now I looked at this guy and I thought to myself that is without a doubt one of the coolest things that I've ever seen I mean I can't even use chopsticks with my hands and this guy's now rocking him with his feet and I sat there and I thought to myself I wish more people saw this side of disability the side where people don't care about their disability the side where there's no negative stigma Associated that having a disability is this bad crap thing and people just get on with their lives becoming the best versions of themselves but unfortunately disability Remains the largest yet the most underrepresented minority group in the world so you never get a chance to see any of them I remember when I got back from the Beijing games I went from being surrounded by all these incredible people with disabilities 24 hours a day for nearly a whole month to getting back to Australia and barely seeing anybody with a disability anywhere yet in Australia alone there are over 4 million people with some kind of physical or intellectual disability that's nearly one in five people do one in five people you know have a disability or how many people the disability do you see on your television screens or do you hear on your radios or do you see in your Parliament or do you see walking down the street on a daily basis now I appreciate that not all disabilities are physical and as easy to spot as mine I get that but a hell of a lot of them are and unfortunately they remain hidden away right across the world really struggling for confidence and a lack of social inclusion and to me that sucks I think it's important that we as a society continue to change our perception of disability away from this idea that it's this really bad unlucky weird thing and stop being so scared to talk about it we need to realize that it's okay to be in a wheelchair or okay to be blind or okay to have any disabil any disability for that matter and we got to further our expectations of what people with disabilities can really do because realistically parents are going to keep having disabled kids and people are going to keep having car accidents that leave them permanently affected it's just a part of life and I know initially it may be a hard pill for people to swallow but they've got to realize there's not as much to fear as you think and your life isn't over just because you have a disability and there's still every opportunity that you can live a successful happy and completely awesome life and I owe a lot of my successes to the fact that I'm in a wheelchair and if I ever had the opportunity to change my life and walk again and eat a magic pill there's no way in hell that I would ever do it and I want more people especially with kids with disabilities to be given the same opportunities that I had to succeed and to tell them that it's okay to be different and in order to do that we need a mainstream disability get people with disabilities into our mainstream meter and increase the visibility which will help work in a positive light we need to start the conversation about disability and make it more commonplace which would go a long way in normalizing it and make the lives of people with disabilities a lot easier in the process and then who knows maybe one day I'll be driving down the freeway in my car and I'll look up and I'll see a guy in a wheelchair on a new billboard but this guy he won't be sad he won't be depressed and he definitely won't be devastated he might be a movie star or he might be a sporting hero who knows he might be the Prime Minister of Australia and this guy he'll be happy and he'll be smiling and he'll be achieving but let's just hope he's not wearing any Crocs thank you guys [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Applause]