Many people can’t say that they would amputate their leg by choice. When John Register was faced with this decision, he made it with relatively little difficulty. He knew that with an amputated leg, he could eventually walk and run again, whereas the alternative would be life in a wheelchair. Since then, he’s earned a silver medal in the Paralympics, made a name for himself in a career of motivational speaking, and been profiled in publications such as the New York Times.
He is a devoted husband to wife Alice and father to daughter Ashley. In addition to speaking, he manages the Paralympic Academy Youth Outreach Program and stays involved with service members by directing the USOC’s Paralympic Military Program. I was fortunate to get to speak with John, who truly chose the right calling in public speaking as demonstrated by an eloquent, articulate, and humble presence.
DB: One of the most popular Disaboom videos is of you swimming, and making a very powerful statement about strength and determination. Do you do other sports in addition to swimming?
JR: When we host our Paralympic military sport camps and engage with the service members, I participate in other Paralympics activities. I don’t do too much outside of swimming and running, but I do stay active to stay fit. I walk a lot with the dogs, ride my bike, and play with my daughter. I enjoy those types of things you can do without having to go to a fitness center, things you can do right around the house.
DB: You are a popular, in-demand motivational speaker who presents to many organizations around the country. Can you tell me how you got started as a speaker?
JR: It’s a funny story actually. I was working for the U.S. Army and I began introducing soldiers from the Army World-Class Athlete Program to high schools for the recruiters. I was a very new amputee at the time. I would introduce the athletes by a poem or a little saying. More and more high school principals started asking me to come back and share more about what happened to me after becoming an amputee.
I began to think about sharing something that these students could really sink their teeth into. A lot of my communication skills came back from my communication major in college, as well as the speaking skills that I learned from growing up in Oak Park, observing my father as a police chief and my mother as a school teacher always speaking in front of people. I learned how to craft the correct message, one that wouldn’t just talk about my disability, but about how we can look at disability in a different light. So that was the beginning of ‘Hurdling Adversity.’ It’s not just a speech, it’s a workshop, and there are a lot of different components to it. It’s all about adversity, disability, goal-setting, and vision; the emphasis is not on myself. I tell stories, but I try and put it on the individual. That’s why the speeches are so popular, because it’s a call to action. So you will hear my story a little bit, but mostly you’ll hear how you can become successful because you are really no different than I.
DB: What are your favorite things to speak about?
JR: I love talking about my wife who just stepped out on her journey and is now a flight attendant. I’m really proud of her for taking that leap and jumping back into the workforce when she has been a stay at home mom for such a long time.
I love talking about my daughter Ashley who has the whole world for her; she’s just as bright as can be. I love talking about what she’s involved with and our family. I think the message of family gets lost day to day. When kids come over to our homes, they’re shocked that more times than not, we sit down as a family for dinner. We turn the TV off and try to dial into each other. With everything in this world--internet, TV, computer, podcasts, all these other things that grab our attention--we can sit down as a family and share what’s happening with us in the day and grow closer. That’s what I love to talk about.
On the disability side, what I like to share involves changing paradigms. Changing the way a person views things; if someone views me as a person with a disability, I would challenge them to realize that they are the person with a disability, because they’re not seeing who I am. If they’re going to define me by my disability, that’s limited, which tells me they’re a limited thinker. A lot of times we’re conditioned to respond in a certain way to persons with disabilities.
In the store, when we see people in a wheelchair, or blind, or a person who has Down’s syndrome, we’re taught by our parent group to walk away and not engage. The child is tugging at their mom’s skirt or dad’s coat saying ‘Hey, how come that person’s different than I am? Look at them,” and they’re trying to discover. And the discovery isn’t bad; they just want to have a question answered. If we say to that child, “don’t stare at that person, it’s impolite,” we’re saying to them, “Something is wrong with that individual.” The second thing we do is take them to a different aisle, to avoid the confrontation. The mom or dad is turning the child away from staring, so the child has the idea reinforced that this must be really bad because mom and dad are turning away. So the next time the child encounters a person who is different in some way, the more likely they are to avoid the situation.
On both sides of the coin, it’s imperative that the person with a disability knows that that child or person staring just has a question. Just because they’re staring, it’s not a bad thing, they’re not being negative, they just have a question. If we as persons with perceived disabilities feed into the negativity, we just reinforce what society has dictated to them. When was the last time we saw a villain who didn’t have some kind of defect? All the characters in Pirates of the Caribbean, Freddie Krueger, etc., all the villains have a scar or something wrong with them. It’s reinforced in the media over and over. It’s imperative for us to dispel those myths that people with disabilities are unapproachable. It’s okay to look. When I see a little kid staring, saying, “Hey mommy! Look at that robot man! He has a robot leg!” I’ll stop and engage that kid. I’ll let them look at the leg and touch it and show them what is unique about me. That way, the question is answered. And mom, once she gets off the floor because she’s passed out [laughs], she’ll say, “Thank you for coming over and sharing.” The child can learn from that. It’s a quick, but life-changing connection with that person.
DB: You recently won an award from your high school alma mater, the "Tradition of Excellence" award. What was the most fun part of speaking with the students?
JR: I was a nervous wreck! I was still writing stuff on stage. I had so much on my mind, so much I wanted to say in 10 minutes. So I had to figure out what the most important thing I wanted to say was.
The thing I like about my high school is that it’s so unique. It’s one of the oldest high schools in the country. What I challenged them with was, “What would you say if you were on this stage twenty years from now? What would you say about your life? What journey would your life have taken? What’s going to be your story, because it does start right here.” There’s still life at that school. The attitudes are a little different now, but these kids are still going home with Chaucer or with calculus books. They’re all different races, but they’re all going home with the same knowledge. In the hallways are pictures everywhere and not one of those people are the same in the photographs. There’s no grafitti on the walls, there’s a very deep respect for the school.
One of the most memorable moments for me was when a young lady came up to me after the speeches and said to me, “Mr. Register, didn’t you find this school boring, didn’t you get bored?” I thought about it, I probably got bored a couple of times in school, though I was involved in so many activities. I told her, “Sweetheart, boredom is a state of mind. You have all these opportunities right here. You’ve got the chess club, the math club, language clubs, a television studio with HD cameras, you can write plays, you can be involved in choirs, and sporting activities. So if you’re bored, you’re the one that’s being bored because there are plenty of activities at this school.” I challenged her, “Get involved. These are your high school years. Get involved, even if you think it might be nerdy to someone else, it might be a passion of yours, and that passion can grow and it can take you places you never thought.” That was pretty cool.
DB: Can you tell us a bit about your personal life? How old is your daughter, is she an athlete like you?
JR: She is ten. She’s everything. She plays basketball and she just started playing the clarinet. My wife and I never wanted our children to follow in our footsteps. We wanted to give them a path of acceptance, “Whatever you do, we’re going to accept you.” The only rule we have is, “If you start it, you need to finish it.” So “If you start the clarinet, you have to commit to it for at least 6 months.” That principle came out of our youth, and that trickles into our adult life. I was very fortunate to have parents like that. I had a paper route when I was younger and I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. After a few days, I didn’t want to do that anymore, but they made me stick with it. That commitment has worked over into other areas of my life.
DB: If you were speaking with a young athlete who had just sustained an injury like yours, what would you want to say to him or her to help that athlete move forward in a positive way?
JR: I would just be real with them. I wouldn’t talk about athletics. I would try and find out what their support structure was like. What’s their family structure, friend structure, faith structure, those are things that interest me because those are the things that are going to determine what kind of comeback or recovery they can make.
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