In 2023, I was in the Alps trekking the 80-mile Tour du Mont Blanc when there came a moment I was no longer trekking, exactly. I was on my hands and knees. Frozen. And then I started to cry. Others were casually bopping past me, up and over like water around a stone. But I was stuck. Why can’t I move? I thought.
I was not always fit enough to trek 80 miles in the Alps. As a child, I was the one who always got picked last in gym class. I would have picked me last too: by any measure, I was the most physically awkward kid in my year group. Other students bullied me and I was ashamed of my body. I felt weird, weak and sad.
Then, when I was 10, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. I also had a severe lordosis, where part of my lower spine runs almost parallel to the ground, and a condition called spondylolisthesis, where one vertebra sits noticeably out of line with the others. When I first saw the X-rays of my spine, I was stunned by the abrupt angles and unnatural twists. It looked like chaos. At that moment, the feeling of being “weak and weird” settled in for good.
Searching for answers, my parents took me to a hotshot orthopaedic surgeon in New York. He told me that the displaced vertebra was very dangerous, and with any fall or bump, it could slip forward, sever my spinal cord and leave me paralysed. Then he said I needed a big operation to chisel enough bone from my thigh to fuse together seven vertebrae in my lower back. I would be in a body cast for a year. The surgery was scheduled. I was horrified.
In the meantime, the world became an unrelenting obstacle course where every bump, staircase or crowded hallway seemed specifically designed to paralyse me. I became afraid to move at all.
After seeking a second opinion, another orthopaedic surgeon told me that many people live with this condition and that the risk of paralysis was actually quite small. He suggested we skip the operation and just keep an eye on my spine.
I took his advice, but for decades I carried a low-level terror inside my body and I became timid about any physical activity.
By my 30s, I was working in increasingly senior executive roles, with endless travel, long hours, and lots of stress; I was exhausted all the time. I would be in agony after standing for an hour. I feared that my weak body would sabotage my career.
When I relocated to Colorado, a colleague invited me on a bike ride to explore my new home town. I said yes, thinking we would go for coffee and probably cycle for no more than 30 minutes. But our first ride was 20 miles into the countryside. I was astounded that I could do it, given that I hadn’t really exercised, ever. The next time, we rode for 50 miles – and I survived that too.
Before long, we were doing 100-mile rides through the Rocky mountains, biking for entire days, and sometimes climbing to altitudes of more than 11,000ft. I was astonished. Each ride challenged a self-limiting belief I had carried since childhood. Could I actually be strong? I asked myself. I started to gain energy and feel less burnt out at work, too; I could now present a one-hour keynote without wanting to collapse at the end.
When I turned 40, I had the desire to become even more active, so I asked a doctor to do a safety assessment on my spine. He compared my current X-rays with those I’d had taken at age 16, and determined there had been no significant movement or degeneration to the vertebrae. He told me that I could pursue fitness with very few limitations, which felt revolutionary. I started working out with a trainer and, for the first time in my life, I stopped thinking about my body only in terms of how it looked or what was wrong with it.
I was 58 when I hiked the Alps with my sister. Frozen on that peak, it occurred to me that it was not my spine, but my latent fear that was paralysing me. Eventually, I took a deep breath and crawled up and over the summit.
For most of my life, I had treated my body as an ungraceful and unreliable adversary. But having biked in the Rockies and trekked in the Alps (and having fallen off a stage during a keynote presentation), all without paralysing myself, I realised I’m not so fragile after all.
Now, at 60, I am running and jumping, doing push-ups and pull-ups and lifting heavy things repeatedly. Transforming my physical strength has changed me at the deepest level. It has redefined my limiting beliefs about what is possible in every part of my life. I am no longer ashamed of my body; it has become my ally.
I bet now, standing among my peers, I would even get picked first in gym class.
