When Life Gives You Lemons

4. Will Bayley MBE - Paralympic Gold medallist, double world champion, Strictly Come Dancing star, childhood cancer survivor

Not only is Will a Paralympic Table Tennis Gold medallist and double world champion but in this chat he speaks so eloquently about his journey of growing up with a physical disability, then being diagnosed with blood cancer at age 7, and how his experience of that traumatic time still drives him today.
Will told us how he sees himself as a 'fighter and a winner' and how he now has his sights set on winning more medals in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Listen to this episode and be inspired.

3. Daniel Geey - Author, renowned sports lawyer, podcaster and deep thinker

Today I'm welcoming Daniel Geey to the podcast. Daniel is one of the UK's most highly respected sports lawyers who has worked on a number of high profile deals over the years. As well as this, he’s a published author and podcaster.
Some highlights in this conversation are discussion around; being shaped by occurrences in your youth, the requirement for self reflection, the need to practice resilience (we are not all born with it), hard choices are not easy but they are worth it and the importance of enjoying the process rather than only focusing on the end goal.
Daniel's published books are Done Deal and his second book, Build the Invisible has just been released (https://www.danielgeey.com/build-the-invisible).
Daniel also presents a couple of podcasts; The Daniel Geey Podcast, which is Football Focused and the other; Build The Invisible, which is a series of interviews with which he built the premise of his second book on. On top of all this, Daniel somehow finds time to run a charity fashion brand called Thirteen, In which all profits go towards funding research into cancer.
To find out more about Dan go to https://bio.site/danielgeey.

2. Vicki Anstey - World Record holder, ’SAS Who Dares Wins’ finalist, Adventurer

Not only was Vicki one of the first females to reach the final round of Chanel 4's TV show 'SAS, Who Dares Wins', she then went on to row the Pacific Ocean in record breaking time, is an Arctic ultra marathon runner and basically an all round motivational woman.
Hers is a story of courage and conquering fears and in this chat we discuss how Vicki found the bravery to make significant life changes, how her resilience has grown following significant life challenges, how she has found strength in vulnerability and how she now sees fear as opportunity in disguise.

1. David Smith MBE - Paralympic gold medallist despite life changing challenges

In 2010, David was diagnosed with a rare tumor growing into his spinal cord in his neck. Following removal of the tumor, he built himself back from scratch, literally teaching himself how to walk again.  Remarkably less than two years later, he won a gold medal in the London 2012 Paralympics
in the mixed Cox four. He then switched sports and joined the British paracycling team with aspirations to go to the Rio Paralympics in 2016. Sadly, he
never made it there because a few months prior to competition, he was told that his tumor had returned.  Now, six years on from that, and he has had in total six surgeries to remove the tumor with each further surgery, bringing new life-changing challenges.  Following his most recent surgery in 2017, he became paralysed on one side of his body and now lives his life with a spinal cord injury. Despite this, David continues to defy the odds and is still passionate about sports choosing to spend his time cycling up crazy high mountains.
I'm continuously inspired by David's story and I loved this conversation where we got deep and philosophical entering a discussion around ‘what is my why’, the importance of personal values, where David found his resilience and so much more. 

Welcome to When Life Gives You Lemons

Just before episode 1, this is an introduction about the who and the why of this podcast. Host Emma Levy introduces us to how the show came to be and how her own brush with adversity has inspired her to look deeper into how, when people are faced with such adversity, they are able to come back stronger. 

COMING 1st of February 2023

Hello! I am so excited to announce the launch of my new podcast ‘ When Life Gives you Lemons’
Having worked with elite athletes for most of my career, it’s always intrigued me that a significant number of high performing individuals have encountered some form of adversity earlier in their lifetime. My fascination into this grew when I had my own brush with adversity when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, at the age of only36.I underwent a double mastectomy with reconstruction, 3 gruelling months of chemotherapy, 15 sessions of radiotherapy and a further 6 months of antibody infusions. In just my mid-thirties, life had truly thrown me one giant lemon. But I have always been a positive person, and a passionate advocate of exercise, being hugely beneficial to my mental as well as physical health. So, in my very first session of chemotherapy, I set myself a goal of completing my first Olympic-distance Triathlon as soon as I was physically able to do so.Once I had approval from my doctors, I started training, and 11 months following major surgery and only 1 month following completion of all active treatment, I completed the London Triathlon. It was throughout this process that I began to truly discover myself and how we can use adversity to our advantage.During this period, I questioned whether it was my positive mindset or maybe something deeper, which enabled me to bounce back and to train and compete for the triathlon.The goal of this podcast is to explore this concept further by meeting a variety of high performing individuals who have also experienced adversity but who have come back stronger.So each week I will be interviewing a new guest from the sporting, cultural and corporate world and beyond. Some, you may have heard of, others maybe not, but each have an inspirational story to tell.I aim to delve into their stories from trauma to growth and attempt to understand how some individuals are able to use adversity to their advantage.My Hope is that by sharing and exploring these stories we can help others deal with adversity and inspire them to do great things.