On a spring day in 2001, Chad Hymas was loading hay on his Utah farm when a 2,000-pound bale collapsed and shattered his neck. He was 27 years old. In an instant, he became a quadriplegic, unable to move his hands, his arms, or most of his body. What happened next is not a story about recovering what was lost. It is a story about discovering what was possible.

About Chad Hymas

Chad Hymas is a best-selling author, world-class wheelchair athlete, and one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in the world. In 2003, just two years after his accident, he set a world record by wheeling his chair from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, 513 miles. He is one of the youngest people ever to receive the Council of Peers Award for Excellence (CPAE) and to be inducted into the National Speaker Hall of Fame, two of the highest honors in professional speaking.

Chad has served as president of the National Speakers Association Utah chapter and holds membership in the elite Speakers Roundtable, a group of just twenty of the world's top speakers. He travels as many as 300,000 miles a year, speaking to organizations including Wells Fargo, American Express, AT&T, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Merrill Lynch. The Wall Street Journal has recognized him as one of the ten most influential people in the world.

His speaking work spans leadership, team building, customer service, and navigating life-altering change, topics he does not just speak about, but has lived.

Life as a Quadriplegic

Quadriplegia, also called tetraplegia, is a form of paralysis that affects all four limbs and typically the torso as well. It results from injury or illness affecting the spinal cord in the cervical region of the neck. For people living with quadriplegia, daily life requires significant adaptation  from mobility and personal care to communication and independence. No two people experience quadriplegia in exactly the same way, and the degree of function retained depends on the location and severity of the injury.

For Chad, the injury was catastrophic by any measure. Yet the life he has built since 2001  the records, the accolades, the hundreds of thousands of people he has moved from stages around the world  is not defined by what the accident took from him. It is defined by what he chose to build in its wake.

In this interview with D&A President and Founder Alexandra Nicklas, Chad discusses safety, perspective, faith, and family. He talks about how he transformed his mindset after his life-altering accident, the life lessons he learned from his father, and what it truly means to become the best version of yourself when you feel like you have lost everything.

What Chad Wants You to Know

• A life-altering moment does not have to be a life-ending one. The story continues, you get to decide what it says.
• Perspective is everything. How you choose to see your circumstances shapes everything that follows.
• The people around you, family, community, faith, are not a luxury when you are rebuilding. They are essential.
• There is no greater time to build yourself than when you feel like you have lost everything.
• Disability changes your life. It does not have to diminish it.

Chad Hymas did not survive his accident and go on to do great things despite becoming a quadriplegic, he went on to do great things because of who he chose to become afterward.