Keeping Your Head Above Water!

Introduction

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

–Albert Einstein

Iwas born at 25 weeks premature in 1987. I weighed just under 600 grams and was approximately equal in size to the palm of a hand. As a consequence being born early, I had a bleed on the brain in the first 3 days of life causing a cerebral haemorrhage resulting in a permeant spinal drainage diversion by inserting a shunt to drain the excess fluid. This led to cerebral palsy and being vision impaired as a consequence of the first few days of life. It was quite clear from the earliest possible age that I was going to be different.

During the time that I was growing up, I found it hard to come to terms with my disability. It was difficult to comprehend the magnitude of it and to accept the hand that I’d been dealt. But the values and beliefs that were instilled in me through my parents, Penny and Michael Levy, and peers, were vitally important. They got me to where I am today.

There have been some unforgettable, while also challenging, moments to deal with over the years. One of them was when I found myself lying in a hospital bed after one of the various brain operations I had to endure. It was a truly surreal moment and one that has stayed with me ever since. I will never forget that feeling. My body felt heavy, my head was full of stitches, and I couldn’t move my arms and legs. It was a feeling of not knowing a guessing game of sorts. I felt out of my body. I was just trying to understand.

At that moment, I felt that it was too hard to go on. My condition and what I was going through were testing the limits of my resolve. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, or how I was going to go about it. But spending time in that hospital was also an oddly inspiring experience. I was feeling a sense of helplessness of not knowing what the outcome was going to be. I was scared of what the future would hold for me.

Being sequestered in a ward full of people going through very similar things to myself, and being forced to deal with significant physical conditions, somehow put my own position into perspective. I was able to see that dealing with challenges was perhaps not as difficult as I thought. I was able to see that even in the darkest circumstances, there is a light side to everything. Life still has meaning even when you have your darkest days ahead of you.

Of course, it was still a scary feeling to be in the hospital, dealing with brain operations, while having no idea of what the ultimate prognosis would be. But it was great to realise that there were people around me who were able to point me in the right direction.

From the day I was born through to my teenage years, I had between 30 and 40 brain operations. Some of them were relatively simple shunt revisions, draining hydrocephalous – fluid on the brain – from my head down to my stomach. This fluid can block adolescent growth and interfere with the bodily changes that occur during this time.

So, from the day that I was born, until around the age of 13, I had a lot of operations. I became very accustomed to hospitals, doctors, and nurses; it was just normal for me. I remember lying in a hospital bed for days on end, wondering when I’d be able to get out, run around with my friends, and be able to live a normal life. It wasn’t long before I figured out that my body simply wouldn’t allow me to do so.

Matt at 5 days old

They were tough times, without a doubt, but they also showed me who I was as a person. The hardest thing was trying to understand the process. As a child aged two or three, lying in a hospital bed, there’s no way for you to understand what is happening to you. By the time I was 11 or 12, I had a greater understanding, but it was still tough to comprehend. It’s difficult not to wonder why something like this is happening to you and not someone else. That was the hardest thing for me to accept in the early days.

Matt at 1 year old

Walking is something many people take for granted; for me, it was a massive struggle. Being born so prematurely, my fine motor skills were delayed. At the age of four, I was still crawling when most kids had long since started to walk. Having cerebral palsy and suffering three strokes during my formative years made it extremely difficult for me to coordinate my movements the way a normally developed person would.

Physical therapy was my gateway through this. Attending regular sessions, I gradually learned how to move my arms and legs like the other kids. I’m so grateful to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance in Allambie Heights, New South Wales. The work I did there helped me get my legs moving to the best of their ability. I wouldn’t be who I am today without that support.

Having so many operations in the early years of your life teaches you a lot about resilience, attitude, and determination. During that time, I had a lot of opportunities to think, not just about my situation but also about wider issues and life itself. I vividly remember making an emergency visit to a local hospital. A shunt system in my brain had malfunctioned, and the doctors were trying to relieve a build-up of pressure; it was pretty touch and go. Inevitably, you end up questioning life and all the things you have done up to that point.

When you’ve grown up as I have, you realise every day is a gift, so you’d better make the most of it.

I can’t remember all the operations, especially the early ones. My heart and lungs were operated on multiple times because I was born prematurely. My parents recall the life-threatening operations I went through when I was new-born. The struggles I went through from day one, and the fight I had on my hands from the beginning is something that was embedded in their memory. I know I’m lucky to be here. When you’ve grown up as I have, you realise every day is a gift, so you’d better make the most of it.

I may not remember all the surgeries, but I do have the scars to prove they took place. I can remember many of the brain operations – and that most of them were in response to emergency life-or-death situations. Naturally, you feel a million miles outside your comfort zone. It might sound strange, but it’s a lot like many of the sporting events I’ve participated in, in the sense that you experience a great deal of doubt and worry.

There are massive physical challenges as well, such as intense headaches and vomiting. You feel like death. There is a part of you that wants to just give up altogether. The prospect that this is the end of your life looms over you like a shadow, that lingering fear that you won’t come out the other side. For the vast majority of the 40 operations I had before I was 13, that was a very real possibility, and as much as you try to be strong and think positive, there’s always that sobering reality in the back of your mind.

Matt at 3 years old

You also experience feelings of confusion and uncertainty. It’s an alien situation that you never become fully accustomed to. You’ve got a mask on to put you to sleep. Nurses and doctors are asking if you’re okay. Clearly, you’re not. You’ve got an unbearable headache, and you’re on the verge of passing out. You’re trying to stay positive, but at that moment, the worst-case scenario always flashes in your mind. At the end of the day, they are dealing with your brain. Potentially, you could come out of theatre worse than you went in – and you won’t even know what went wrong.

A few times, my heart stopped beating, and the doctors had to resuscitate me. They don’t tell you that until you’re well on the way to recovery, but it must have been terrifying for my parents to witness. Then, when you wake up, you feel terrible. You’re punch drunk from the operation—the drugs, all of it. But you also feel euphoric – I made it.

When you go through something like that, you gain a whole new perspective on how to be a better person. We only get one shot at this; that had been made abundantly clear to me. Growing up with a sense of your own mortality, you know you have to make the most of life.

It’s certainly something to think about and something I think we should all be contemplating more often. I draw on those memories when I’m competing – if that experience doesn’t put the challenge of competitive swimming into perspective, what will?

Matt with sister Brooke getting ready to use the family pool

I was lucky enough to visit the Sydney 2000 Paralympics as a spectator, and I saw people with far worse disabilities than my own. It got me thinking of wanting to do more than just swimming up and down for fitness. That is where my dream started. Seeing people with far worse disabilities than my own allowed me to see and feel what was possible and it gave me a burning desire to join them at the next games.

Although I am a competitive swimmer now, swimming didn’t come naturally to me. I’ll tell you about how that came about in the next chapter.

Now, most of my mornings begin the same way. My alarm goes off at 4:45 am. I get up and prepare for the day’s training session. My dad is extremely helpful, driving me to the North Sydney Olympic Pool, located directly under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s a spectacular location – even looking at it through sleepy eyes at 5:30 in the morning.

Each training block begins with 30 minutes of dry land work, which includes stretches and general warm-up activities. Then I get into the pool and train solidly for the next hour-and-a-half. I vary my pool work to ensure I cover everything, testing my full skill-set and getting all my muscles moving effectively.

I usually swim over five kilometres in one session. This usually begins with between one and one-and-a-half kilometres of different techniques and strokes, including scaling, kicking, butterfly stroke, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle at various distances. I start off with around 300-metre sets, and then I will do a range of sprints: sets of 100 metres on specific time cycles that range from 1:45 to two minutes.

Then I’ll move onto the main sets, which can vary depending on whether I’m focusing on sprints or distance events. If it’s a sprint day, my main work will constitute 10 to 12 sets of 25-metre sprints. If it’s a distance day, I’ll swim some longer sets, which total around three kilometres. A typical distance day involves five sets of 400 metres freestyle, which tends to be my strongest stroke. I also work to a specific time cycle, trying to complete each set in around six minutes. Alternatively, I might swim five sets of 200 metres on a three-minute time cycle, followed by some kicks and sprints to ensure I’ve covered every base.

I’ll finish with a final piece of technique work, putting in some time to refine areas where I feel there’s room for improvement. Swimming is a good, solid workout. It definitely gets my heart going and blood pumping, setting me up for the day.

From there, I catch a train and head into work for an 8 am start. I’m a project manager for Westpac Banking Group. The company has a diverse portfolio of interests, so my role is pretty varied. I’m usually working on somewhere between 10 and 12 projects at any given time, incorporating everything from simple process improvements to bigger projects that result in fundamental changes to the way a given business operates. I have a busy schedule, and I almost always eat lunch at my desk, but I like being on the ball all day. My work keeps me active, and I can leave at 3 pm – early enough to squeeze in another swimming session.

When that clock strikes three, I head straight back to the pool for my second training session of the day from 4 pm through to 6:45 pm. This second session begins with some more dry land work for a slightly longer period. I’ll probably spend around 40 minutes preparing for the swim before getting back into the pool.

My afternoon sessions are quite similar to my morning sets in terms of distance, but I focus more on quality sets in the afternoon. In these threshold sets, I give it my all over race distance, trying to hold the pace I aim for when I compete—something in the region of eight 50-metre sprints. I attempt to hold my best average time of around 35 seconds.

I always do two training sessions a day as it mimics the schedule for a major championship. Heats are in the morning and the final is in the afternoon or evening, which is also the case with many Olympic and Paralympic events. When you take this into consideration, it makes perfect sense to save your higher-intensity session for the afternoon.

At around 7 pm, I head home and have dinner. As I’m currently studying for an MBA, I will do some preparatory work and often have a group meeting. My studies are so important to me, as I want to develop my career. It’s not just about gaining another qualification; every string you can add to your bow is valuable, and I like to challenge myself as much as I can.

From memory, I was always a good student. I remember my teachers taking extra care in trying to get me to comprehend certain things such as maths and problems-solving, which were difficult at times. Also, I was not able to do activities such as gymnastics, so keeping me occupied during these lessons was somewhat of a challenge during these times.

By the time I’ve completed my studies for the evening, it’s usually about 8:30 pm. This just leaves me with enough time for some light meditation before I go to bed at 9 pm. Then I get up the next day and do it all over again!

When I started competitive swimming, I would get really nervous before my race, so I needed something to calm me down, a way to settle my nerves in a stressful situation. I was lucky enough to come across the power of the mind through a workshop I attended at one of my development camps. My interest and understanding of meditation emerged from an early workshop I attended at this camp. The workshop helped define my understanding of the mental processes of sport and life in general.

I suppose the life I lead now is quite disciplined. There isn’t a huge amount of time for leisure, but I enjoy pushing myself, trying to derive as much as possible from my capabilities. I’m sure you can see the stark contrast between my early life and the way I live now. It’s hard to reflect on the way people around me felt at the time, but I’m not sure anyone expected me to end up where I am now. Survival was my number one priority. It was a long time before competing in the Paralympics seemed achievable to me, let alone winning medals. It wasn’t a goal I set for myself but rather something that evolved over time.

The first thing I did was develop my system for success—the seven pillars that have helped me grow as a person. It was a slow process, and it’s one that is still ongoing.

Here is a brief overview of my seven pillars of success:

1. S etting manageable goals and targets.

2. U nderstanding your tools for success.

3. C reating your inner action plan.

4. C reating your inner circle.

5. E ngaging your inner circle.

6. S trategising for success.

7. S taying focused.

In this book, I will open up to you about what life has been like for me and demonstrate how following this blueprint has helped me reach my potential, not only as an athlete but also as a person. I will also provide some insight into the life of a Paralympian, what goes on behind the scenes, the events that have unfolded over the years, the achievements I’m most proud of, and the places I’ve travelled during my swimming career.

No matter how difficult your personal circumstances may seem, you can make it to the other side with goals, hopes, dreams and the promise of achievement.

Where there is life, there is hope.

It’s been a long road, and I’m still trying to push the boundaries further and further every day. My personal experience has taught me that no matter how difficult your personal circumstances may seem, you can make it to the other side with goals, hopes, dreams, and the promise of achievement.

Where there is life, there is hope.

Chapter 1

- S -

Setting Manageable Goals

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

–Charles Swindoll

Early on in life I came to realise that goals aren’t easy to attain. I learned that you need to have a process, a plan to achieve the goals you set yourself. To set goals that were manageable, I started by breaking down my end goal into small daily goals that would help me get closer to my target each day. By doing this, the goal seemed closer every day, and I was able to see improvements continually.

Learning to walk in the early days of my life was tremendously difficult. As I was born premature, it made it really hard to be able to harness the fine and gross motor skills that other kids take for granted. That meant that during the early period of my life, I was crawling around the house, rather than walking, as no doubt my parents had expected. This went on until I was five-years-old, and, to be honest, it was extremely challenging for everyone involved.

I remember a time back in 1999 when I went to one of my first swimming meetings for my school. I barely made 50 metres that day. I didn’t hear the time to leave for the day and ended up missing the bus to go back to school. Back then, with no social media or a mobile phone, I was stuck at Olympic Park in Sydney. I was some 70 kms from my home with only 60 cents in my pocket.

At that moment, I could have crawled into a ball and cried, but I was able to get myself up and find a way home. I took a lot of wrong turns, asked questions of strangers, and got blank looks from the general public. But I finally got home some four hours later. I started by breaking down where I needed to go, what I need to do to get there, and how I should go about it. I started by defining my goal, which was to get home, then working through the process of how I was going to get there, which was by walking, taking the bus, and then taking the train. In going through this process, I was able to determine a timeframe and a direction. Once I had the goal and the direction, I set out to find my way home. Breaking down this process into the sub-goals of getting there from the train, bus, and walking, kept me in a positive frame of mind. But I learned a great lesson in goal-setting and working towards a target.

However, today I’m able to look on that episode as a positive. It wasn’t ideal at the time, but my struggle to learn how to walk, I believe, was a great enabler. It enabled me to