WOWWW WHAT A YEAR… BYE 2011

As the new year rings in, the look back on how I spent my time in 2011 and how it got me to where I am today in 2012, and all the great things that have to look forward to in this new coming year. 2011 was one of the best years of my life as it marked the culmination of certain things in my life and a berth in the beginning in other things. But no matter what one thing definitely maintained throughout the course of 2011 and I know will continue wanted to 2012, and that is my unbelievable support structure of friends, family, and my favorite the community. If I ever had any doubt that any people were behind what I was doing in my mission that I was trying to succeed in both personally with my own personal physical goals and most importantly my goals of the foundation and trying to raise more money, all of you reassured the fact to me that all of you are 100% supportive of everything I’m doing and that is the best feeling in the world, and if anything else is something that gets me out of bed every morning. Needless to say, is definitely a year I will never forget, as it was historical in several aspects to me. Most importantly our fourth annual event where we raised over $425,000 and had over 1000 people attend the event at the Hafif Estate.  As I sat up on stage that night giving my speech to everybody had many emotions running through my mind. And sometimes as your fundraising and putting all your time and effort into one thing, you have your doubts, your doubts on whether or not what you’re doing is being appreciated and what you’re doing to help other people is worth it.  Those doubts one away pretty quickly as I sat up on stage that night and saw 1000 people all eyes in listening to what I had to say. Then that moment in my world stopped and everything went into slow motion I had a really good chance that think about why I do what I do, and how at that very moment it was all worth it. To see 1000 people there not just to support me but to support a cause, to support a population of people that’s in need of help. I came to find out that I wasn’t the only one who got it, the only one who understood it, there was thousands of people there that knew exactly what I. Got sometimes we just need to lean out and reach out to help somebody, and everybody there that I understood that very thing to. That’s how I knew this was all worth it, all the time and effort, all the manpower, all the hours put in, because no matter what at that moment in time I wouldn’t have been doing anything else other than trying to raise money to help other people. And I like to think we did a pretty darn good job of doing so, as we all helped create a record-setting night for the foundation. It made our foundation’s mission extend much farther beyond what we could have ever thought for this coming year in 2012, with having the opportunity with being able to help out more individuals with SCI than we could have ever expected. You all made that possible, and in doing so have gotten the foundation’s name out on a more national scale as we are finally getting the recognition that we all deserve in this community. In 2011 we witnessed the foundation grow far bigger than we would’ve ever thought of, as the foundation held court and made a big run in the vivint.com philanthropy voting competition this past summer, as we almost took home the prize of hundred thousand dollars by winning the Pacific region. It just came to show me all the people that are behind the foundation that were voting every single day in trying to make this dream become a reality.  Some of you may recall the huge honor that the foundation received at the beginning of summer from ABC 7. In culmination of the Opera Winfrey show coming to an end on ABC, she launched a program called pay it forward in which it promotes individuals in society or community groups in society to raise money and awareness for a particular cause. Our foundation was nominated to help receive the $7000 reward from one of our own SCI friends that we help, Chris Siebel. Chris nominated us to 87 by sending in a video where he explained how the foundation has helped him get back to being himself once again.  ABC 7 gave me a call and said that they would like to come in and do some filming at the Clermont Club, because we were one of the nominees that they highlighted to potentially be a $7000 recipient. After the two-hour filming session, many questions asked and responded to, the news crew brought the entire staff of the club and my family together and presented us a $7000 award is one of the winners of the Pay it Forward  campaign.  Needless to say, we were all shocked and blown away in quite honored by such a reward. This yet again got the foundation on a national scale and was seen by thousands of people across the nation. But the experience didn’t just stop there. A few days after the segment showed on national television, I received an e-mail from somebody within the ABC 7 Studios broadcast team, their very own and my respected idol Rob Fukuzaki.  Rob is the local sports reporter at ABC 7, and he is the host of his own show Sportszone. Rob is somebody who I have been watching for years as he provides much analysis of our local hometown teams. Rob saw the segment of Pay it Forward in the studio, and had heard that I was attending the University of LaVerne to become a sports broadcaster. Ironically enough Rob is a huge prestigious figure on campus at Laverne, is he graduated there himself. Rob invited me into the studios to sit on set, during one of the recordings and live segments of his Sportszone program. I had quite the experience as I got to see Rob in action, and what everything was like behind the scenes. This only further entice me to look forward to working hard and getting my degree so I am able to follow my dreams of hopefully someday becoming a sports broadcaster myself.  At a and yet even after that are the foundations recognition didn’t even stop there.  My dad and I were contacted by Southwest Airlines with some great news. My dad had submitted a few applications for the past several years of trying to get a story about the foundation put into Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine. Finally our voices heard and we got our big break. Southwest agreed to writing a story about my dads company in conjunction with the foundation, and how his company and the foundation are making a difference in the community by helping other people. The article was written, after a photo shoot with my dad and I was taken by representatives from Southwest. Are article was submitted and published in every seat back pocket across the nation, on every Southwest plane for the entire month of November. Many of you might’ve seen the article. It was perfect. And if anything, continued to get more and more exposure across the nation for all the great things that we are doing to help other people here in our little community. That year that will be remembered forever was personally highlighted by a family trip to Lake Powell, on a houseboat for the first time since my accident.  I didn’t know how I would do and what many would consider to be solitary confinement on a 75 foot houseboat.  Did I mention that it was out in the middle of nowhere in one of the most beautiful places in the entire world? Yet I guess it wasn’t so bad to be in solitary confinement. We spent 10 days on the houseboat, where I have a lot of time to reflect about how far I’ve come, where I’ve gotten to, who I am as a person, what my aspirations are in life, how many people the foundation has helped, how much my life has changed in four short years, but most importantly how happy and proud I am of just finally coming to accept who I am as a person, what my role is in society and the fact that people are accepting of that role and that person today. That more than anything is one of the best feelings in the world when I wake up and I know that people are accepting of who I am no matter what my condition or state is. And if anything through this entire process I have found the true me. And that person with no cockiness involves, is one of the strongest and mentally powerful people that I know. I say this with confidence with knowing that I can overcome anything that is thrown at me in life and that life is simply quite easy when you break it down to what it really is all about. Life is about being happy, living life to its fullest, not being content with what you have, just simply appreciating everything around you and never giving up, focusing on your dreams, achieving your goals, setting  precedence, creating standards, carving new paths,  being innovative, reaching out to others in need, but the most important thing of all being confident and comfortable with who you are as a person and knowing that that is the best thing in the entire world. You are you, and there is nothing more that anybody can ask for because you are somebody great, somebody I can go out and make a difference, somebody that has something to offer to the world that nobody else does, and that’s what your unique. God didn’t choose me to be in this situation because he was punishing me for something, he is using me because he will find glory through me. That’s why people are put through these situations. Things in life happen for a reason and it doesn’t necessarily make sense at first, until we are slapped in the face and we have a huge reality check of the big picture of life and how everything in life seems to help us further our pursuit of happiness. So what have I figured out after another full year of my life come and gone again? I guess that my situation is it really that bad. Am I doing all the things that I would want to at this age and stage my life? No, not necessarily, but that doesn’t really matter to me. What matters to me more is the fact that I have the opportunity to wake up every single day and go out and affecting change somebody’s life. That’s far more important than any other personal achievement that may obtain, and it’s more fulfilling than anything in the entire world that I have the opportunity to help others heal.  After several country music concerts, a country music benefit concert for the Be Perfect Foundation, several trips to the lake, nights out on the town with friends, nights at home with my family, speaking engagements to people of all ages, high school football games, Angels games or should I say Red Sox games, Dodger games, and what I’m most thankful for these days Laker games, holidays with the family, off roading out at Havasu, and every other little experience and moment that I will hold onto forever spent with my family and friends throughout the year, I like to think I live the perfect life. Under the perfect circumstances, the perfect situation, the perfect community, the perfect support structure, the perfect recovery, the perfect foundation  and simply just the perfect mindset and heart full of appreciation, gratitude, sincerity,  honor, praise, respect and motivation, towards all of you who help get me up out of bed every morning.  I love you all and always remember to be perfect.  I look forward to an unbelievable 2012 shared with all of you, let’s go take another step forward in all of our lives and our pursuit of walking again someday together.  Happy holidays. HAL JR.
LUKE 5:24 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”

B.P. 4.0 HISTORY, THANKS TO ALL

I feel like I start every blog by saying wow…. And this time is no different except for the fact that I’m absolutely speechless. About eight months ago when we started planning for this event we knew it would be a lot of work, a lot of man-hours, a lot of thinking, much preparation, much to do, many volunteers to be found, much-needed help from our committee to step up and get things done, much last-minute stressing about thinking we were going to have 400 people at the event and within the past two weeks before the event 500 more signing up, we definitely knew we had our work cut out for us. But,  with the help of all you, with the help of all of our unlivable volunteers and with the help of my perfect committee that I would not change for the world, we successfully created and put on a historic event, that will break records, be a night that will be remembered forever, a night that will change people’s lives forever, and a night that I will hold onto forever. I’m sitting here today my room back to my fast-paced life, school, friends, family, sports the life that I love living. But, I think back to a week ago to wear time literally stood still.  A night that was planned for a straight year finally came, and it was one of those moments where you’re so relieved that the night has finally come and all of your hard work is the payoff, but it’s also one of those nights where you want that moment last forever, you want to ingrain everybody you saw that night into your mind, you want to cherish every moment about the program and what you took out of it, but most importantly you come to realize that you are forever changed. That your perception of life is forever changed simply because what you witnessed that night, history, inspiration, motivation, hope, perseverance, and just an overall unbelievable feeling of self-fulfillment of who you are as a person and being proud of that, but at the same time wanting more from yourself. Pushing yourself that much harder to reach your goals and achievements you’ve set for yourself, focusing that much more on the little details in life and not letting that fast-paced life get the best of you, and most importantly valuing every moment for what it’s worth, cherishing every breath you take and every step you take just knowing that it could be your last. Is there one more thing you could’ve said? Is there one more thing you wish you could have done? Is there one more person you wish you were reached out to? Are you proud of who you are? Or do you still want more? Hopefully, all of you are proud of who you are but the same time hopefully all of you still want more out of yourself. Hopefully all of you feel that you can push yourself even harder, that there is more within you, more than you have to offer to this world, more that you can give rather than receive, and if you haven’t already found your purpose  this certainly hope that you left that night with either  a better idea of what that purpose is, for finding a certain motivation to go on a pursuit to find what your purpose is. I am just hoping that like myself, all of their lives were changed forever that night. I Cannot tell you how blessed I am and how blessed I feel to have such an amazing support structure around me. Even though that night was not about raising money for me, and I got much of the credit in the attention that night for the mere fact that I’m the face of the foundation, I don’t necessarily care for it to be that way because it is because of all of you the donors, the volunteers, my committee and most importantly the reason that we were all there all of the SCI victims whose lives were dramatically changed forever in a split second. All of you guys are the ones that give me hope and of the ones that I should be thanking and looking up to. You guys are the reason that my decision is so easy every morning for me to get up and out of bed and go do what I do, and it simply because it’s worth it to me at the end of the day when I see a huge smile on all of your faces and tears rolling down her cheeks at that event, it’s all clear to me that it’s worth it. The reason we do what we do to help others heal.  As for me if you’re wondering what I have learned through all of this and taken away from it? It’s actually that life is quite simple yet not easy. Life throws you curve balls and most of  the time you swing and miss, or sometimes you just let the opportunity pass you by and take the free pass.  But no matter what we are presented with opportunities and that is what’s most important. Without opportunities we have nothing, and that’s all we need because we are not looking for security we are just looking for opportunities to make something of ourselves and our situation. Then, he simply does run with it and you go with it, and you don’t stop until you achieve that goal. Because life isn’t about how successful you can be because that is defined through other people, life is just simply about your achievements because those are defined for yourself and that is the bar that you’ve set for yourself. At times we all need to be self-motivated and when you set the bar that high and you achieve those goals is when you realize that it’s all worth it not because someone else has told you how successful you are and can be but simply because we have lived up to our own expectations of what we feel and think we are capable of. Being all have it within us and we know it. It’s those people who doubt is that like a fire under us. We all have to realize that talent  just simply gets us through the door but your character is actually what keeps you in the room, because we will shouldn’t let other people’s judgments of us affect who we truly are we should simply live our life to its fullest and be proud of who we are as individuals. Because life isn’t about wearing about our reputations it’s about worrying about our character, because our character is who we truly are and our reputation is merely what others think of us. However, sometimes there is contradictory in that statement because other people’s doubts of who we are is our driving force in what we do. So what I’m trying to say is, no matter what it takes and no matter what the reason is fine that little thing that gets you up and out of bed in the morning and go do what you do. Whether it’s someone else’s doubt, your own personal motivation, or just your physical want and emotional want to achieve those goals that you have set for that day fine that’s only connected to up and out of bed because that will define who you are as a person. Once you realize this and you realize that you can be self-motivated you are to be a bigger and better person than you ever thought you could be. All that I asked is that you stay true to yourself, treat your morals, cherish your beliefs and values and most importantly stand up for what you believe in. I’ve come to find out that there was 1000 people there last Saturday night that believes in what I am doing and I am forever grateful for that. So when you’re out in public and someone asking about that bracelet around her wrist don’t tell but you are supporting me at home that you’re standing up for what you believe in advance that you can be perfect. And that doesn’t mean that you are the perfect person necessarily, what it simply means is that you can be the perfect person that gives their all to no matter what it is that they’re doing whether it’s relationships, family, friends, school, therapy, and most of all what we were all there Saturday night for someday walking again. But please continue to spread the awareness and continued to support them if you can do that for me I am forever indebted to all of you. As for today what I’ve learned, is that my change in my life hasn’t paralyzed me it simply motivated meet to find who I am truly supposed to be and what my purpose is in this world.  As for where begins, well it starts every morning when I roll over and look at that alarm clocks and I have to make my decision, then I begin to think of what my life is truly about, the people that I have around me, the people that I need to walk for, and the achievements that I need to obtain for myself. Because I’m not still entirely convinced of who I am nor am I complacent with who I am and i’m not content with who I am, I continue and want to search for more within myself because of all of you.. So when you wake up tomorrow morning to let me help you make that decision, just roll over and look at the alarm clock and for those of you who wear the bracelet looked down at her wrist and see what it says… It does not only does it show that you’re supporting a cause but also shows her standing up for what you believe in. Life’s about surrounding yourself with great people and this isn’t by accident that I have so many great people around me. I’m not being conceited by saying that I’m great at choosing my friends but what I’m really trying to say is that all of your true colors have shown and I know that all of you that are in my life where that bracelet simply because you all are perfect in some way shape or form and you all wake up every morning with the attitude that you’re in to try and live up to being perfect.  So as for the face the foundation, is simply laugh when people say that it is me and that I’m the driving force behind all this, people are so naïve and they don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. You all who are involved and support are the face of this foundation. Thanks for a record-breaking year with record-breaking numbers.  1000 attendees, 50 spinal cord injury attendees, $425,000 raised, one goal, one purpose, one night, one theme, thousands of life’s touched forever,  history Marked on that mile marker,  but the most important thing all of you giving back the hope to all those that we will continue to help reach their milestones that they have set. Because it is the little victories in life is not just about walking a, it’s about becoming comfortable with who you are again, becoming independent and just figuring life out  when it throws you that curveball. So when your face about stuff like this week and you’re confused on whether or not to go when it’s yellow, simply just slow down and stop, take a deep breath, take everything in around it and  noticed the little details in life, because you may have just passed up the biggest opportunity of your life…. Be perfect

BE PERFECT 4.0

CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU ALL THERE NEXT WEEK… KEEP REGISTERING PLEASE!

Birthday Thanks….

I would just like to take the time to thank everyone who either thought of, acknowledged me or even may have not even known that it was my birthday on Sunday August 14.  I had so many people acknowledge me that it made me feel so good inside to know that I was being thought of.  Even though birthdays aren’t a big deal to me at all, and my new birthday of July 26, 2007 is the true one that matters to me, I still respect the fact and honor the fact that all of you remembered  and thought of me on my birthday. Thank you so much for making it a great day and keeping my spirits held high and as always keeping me motivated. I have such an amazing support structure. I love you all….. Be Perfect.

4 years ago today…. Thank You!

When I think back on the past four years the first thing that comes to mind is “ wow I cannot believe it has already gone by that fast and been that long.” Today, July 26, 2011, marks the four-year point since the day that my accident occurred. And you can give it several names. My anniversary, my day of doom, the worst day of my life, the most significant day of my life, my most memorable day of my life, a car accident that left me paralyzed from the neck down, or simply just what I refer to it as now, my new birthday. A birthday is most commonly celebrated on the day in which a person was born. A celebration of an occasion in which somebody came to life. To myself my new birthday on July 26, 2007 is far more important to me than August 14, 1989. Even though the first 17 years of my life were among the greatest and helped get me to where I am today, I feel as if I have learned, lived, laughed, loved and accomplished more in the past four years than I have ever before. July 26, 2007 may have been the most devastating day my life, but at the same time I was resurrected and reborn a second time and come back as a new person. You all might agree with what I’m saying simply just from the physical aspect of my life and how it has changed and made me a new person, but let me just reassure the fact that this isn’t the type of new person that I am referring to. I think it would be pretty easy to say that I was fairly young when this had happened to me, and I had to start living life as a quadriplegic. A phrase and a term that absolutely cannot stand to hear. From the moment that I had gotten hurt I was forced to grow up and become a man. At that point in time I really knew what was in front of me, what was ahead of me, and the path that I needed to take to get there. I knew it wouldn’t be easy and I definitely knew that I wouldn’t be able to do it alone. So here I stand/ sit four years later telling you my story of how I’ve become a young man that was reborn again. Prior to my injury, my whole life was devoted to family, friends, sports and athletics. I lived a great life with much support, much self pride, hard-working and motivated attitude with a passion to succeed in no matter what it is that I had put my mind to. I have an unbelievable group of friends. Friends that I knew would be there no matter what the circumstances were and no matter at what cost it would take. Needless to say, my group of friends loves each other unconditionally. Meaning that our love for each other as friends we would keep intact and go to any extent and any costs in order to make our friendships and love for each other last forever. Whether it was a testament to my judgment or simply my friends having their colors shine through, on July 26, 2007 I’m here to tell you that all those people that I thought would be there for me, were definitely the ones that were there for hours upon hours in the hospital, hours upon hours after I got out of the hospital and now for the rest of my life. Did they prove me wrong? To tell you the truth, yes they absolutely did. Did I think that they would all be around still? Yes, but where they prove me wrong was how they went about things and would do things for me without even asking. Being there right by my side without even asking. Showing up without even asking. Keeping me motivated without even knowing. Pushing me without even knowing. Getting me up out of bed in the morning without even knowing. And being the most unbelievable group of friends and support structure in the world without even knowing. Yes, these are my friends, family and support. So for all of my friends and family that did all those things for me without even knowing, I hope all of you know now what you mean to me, how far you have brought me and how far you’ll take me and my recovery. Yes we will walk together. Will it be tomorrow? Maybe not. But if I can be selfish for one moment and ask you all the biggest favor that I’ve ever asked for in my life, it’s that can you please keep believing in me and my cause, my recovery, my ability, my strength, my perseverance and my appreciative attitude of having you all my life. Can you please keep coming around and being there for me. If you can do this for me I can assure you that we will all walk together someday soon. I understand that this is a lot to ask and is very selfish on my part, and I know that I will never be able to return the favor and will be indebted for the rest of my life to all of you, but I’m just hoping that I can try and hold up my end of the stick and in some way affect all of your lives in some way that is nonphysical, and hopefully return the favor by helping you all get out of bed in the morning and giving you that motivation. My biggest fear after I’ve gotten hurt was my acceptance into this world again. I feared all of you would not see me for myself anymore. Early on I tried to stress the fact to all of you that I was still the same “HAL”, regardless of my ability to walk and my wheelchair. The greatest feeling of all, was that you all actually believe me when I said that, and that you all have continued to see me for myself. That to me it has been the greatest gift in the world that God has given me, other than my own personal one of living with this injury. You all might think I’m crazy when I say that I truly am living my life with a gift. But let me just reassure all of you of my whole philosophy of life, and how things happen for a reason and how I am getting an opportunity to experience something that almost all of you reading this won’t. I won’t try and be all philosophical other than saying that I feel as if I am all of you guys as Jesus Christ, in which my accident was a symbol of hopefully dying on the cross for all of you and taking all of your pains and sins away by having to live my life with this injury. I’m hoping that my philosophy is true, and that if I can alter any of your lives, change any of your perceptions, or motivate any of you in some small way. If I can do that than this injury, this occurrence, this lifestyle was the best decision of my life, the greatest gift of all and more rewarding than anything I’ve ever put my heart and soul into as long as I’ve lived. I have come to realize that there is zero point to life without friends, acquaintances, boyfriends and girlfriends and most importantly family. If you don’t have any of that, you have nothing. If you don’t have any of that, you don’t have sports. If you don’t have any of that, you don’t have motivation. If you don’t have any of that, you don’t have a reason to live. If you don’t have any of that, you cannot fulfill your purpose. If you don’t have any of that, you cannot be yourself. I have come to realize all of this at what I feel and what I have heard is a young age to have realized. I have been fortunate to do so because it has given me such a great and positive outlook on life in which I live my life so much more appreciative for what I have, so much more grateful for what I have lived for, so much more blessed for the people around me and so much more motivated for what lies ahead of me. Let me just reiterate the fact, that I did not figure this all out on my own. It was because of all of you, that I finally came to my senses and realized what I had around me. As a teenager graduating high school and going off to college, most of us think we have a general idea of who we are, where we are going and maybe what we want to do with the rest of our lives. But none of us ever seen to take the time just stop and think for a second what would happen if those ideas and plans went off course and adversity hit. How would we react? What would we do next? Could we get through it? Would we survive? Would we give up that? Or would you get back up and keep pushing forward? We all just assume everything is going to go according to plan and that nothing could ever happen to us. It always takes something drastic, life changing, lifestyle altering and unfortunately tragedy in order to get us to change our perceptions of life and how we approach it. It essentially takes a slap in the face to give us all a realization how grateful we need to be for what we have. Why’s that so? Why can’t we all just realized that before the fact and not have to go through so much in order to get the big picture? It’s because we are all so naïve to everything in life. Just when you think you know it all, you learn something new. Just when you think you have it all, you lose something in a heartbeat. Just when you think you have something figured out, a new problem arises. Just when you think you have your life handed to you, it’s all taken away in a split second. Just when you think you know your true friends, they change your perceptions of them. And just when you think you know who you are, you realize there’s so much little that you know about yourself, what you are capable of, how much you can endure, how much you can take and handle, how hard you can push, and most importantly what you have to offer to the world. This is why life is priceless and it simply can’t be taught, just learned. You can be taught certain aspects of life, certain ways you should approach it, but you simply can’t be taught how to live it. We are all different in so many ways, which is why the world goes round. We all have a different purpose and a different aspect of ourselves to offer to the world. Things in which, they are not duplicated in any other person, which is why there is only one of us on the world. We simply cannot be duplicated, replicated or copied in any way shape or form and that’s something we should all value in each other. The fact in which we will not find the same qualities in two different people. It’s a simple analogy that I give to all of the sports teams that I go and talk to. No matter how good or bad the team is, I stress the fact that they are still a team and that they are “ONE”. That is something that should be valued amongst all of them. The fact that after that particular season is over, it will never be the same exact group of guys, the same exact team, the same exact chemistry, let alone the same exact moment that all of those individuals are spending together. Those are the things in life that should be valued and should be held onto forever before it’s too late. I’ve come to realize not only has the past four years taught me a lot about myself, about life, about spinal cord injury, but more importantly it has taught me a lot about all of you. Thing’s that I am going to value and hold onto forever. I truly believe that I have finally found my true self, my true calling in life and my true purpose, devoting my life to helping other people an starting The Be Perfect Foundation, which has changed the lives of hundreds and only three short years. Which has only led me to believe that things in life truly do happen for a reason. Because I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be who I am today, wouldn’t be where I am today, know what I know today and most importantly achieved what I have achieved until this point had it not been for this accident but most importantly had it not been for all of you. I thank you all for that so much. For all the people that my family has met along the way, all of the people that have stepped up into our lives, all the people that have been there prior and until this point, and even the people that were there early on and have moved on with their lives, you all have impacted me in some way as well as my family and that’s something that we can value forever. To all my close family friends, my close guy and girl friends, my girlfriend and most importantly my family you guys are my reasons for getting up out of bed in the morning, and I will try to do so every day for the rest of my life and not let you down. All of you people know who you are and what you mean to me, but for those who continue to be there for me day in and day out, I know that you definitely know who you are. You all are my heroes. As for my combination of care,(Casa Colina, Project Walk, Claremont Club) everyone involved at each facility, staff, my trainers and all who have come to watch and cheer me on; you all have educated me so well about this injury, this lifestyle, life decisions but most importantly pushed me far past the point of mere mental, emotional and physical exhaustion. Which has helped me discover a side of myself I didn’t know existed that has helped me exceed even my own expectations of myself. I have not settled, never taken no for an answer, never lost hope, never believed the ones who had doubts, and never game up because all of you. You all have made my road to recovery easy and this detour the least bumpy road that I could have possibly of traveled. I have been reborn and resurrected once again and I have found who I am. My name is Hal Hargrave. I am 21 years old in four short years ago, on July 26, 2007 I was reborn, after I sustained a spinal cord injury that left me paralyzed from the neck down. It could’ve wrecked me, left me depressed, left me hopeless and left me searching for answers I couldn’t find. I found out the answers to all of these questions through the power of my support structure. I have realized I am still the athlete I was before…I found out that this injury wasn’t about the physical capacity that I had or physical paralysis that was put upon me, to overcome his injury, but more importantly overcoming the mental and emotional paralysis that this injury can leave you with. Once I figured that out, I finally found my true self again.Due to the account of all these great people and amazing life I have found myself and I have figured out life……………. For now………… Be Perfect

Thank you to all who have supported me, the foundation and to all who have donated to this great cause… We’ve raised $800,000 in 3 short years! PERFECT… Lets keep changing PERCEPTIONS… Hope to see you all at Be Perfect 4.0 this year on Sept. 24! Love you all!!

To all my SCI buddies keep pushing and stepping forward I promise you we will get there…

ABC 7 STUDIO VISIT….

I had a great opportunity to go into the ABC 7 studios and sit on the set of SportsZone, posted by Rob Fukuzawki.  After The Be Perfect Foundation had been honored on ABC 7’s Pay it Forward campaign, as one of the recipients of the $7000 grant, Rob had saw the segment in the studio and realized who I was. I actually had the chance to meet Rob a few years ago during a playoff Lakers basketball game, when Rob came up and introduced himself to me during halftime of the game. He said he had heard my story and knew who I was through a mutual friend of ours, Gregg Hafif. So when Rob had saw the segment on the foundation for the Pay it Forward campaign, he asked the reporter, Elex Michelson, to notify me and asked if I wanted to come down to the studio to check things out. Rob had heard that I was attending University of Laverne to obtain a communications degree, which happens to be the exact school and degree that Rob got what he was going to college. So immediately Rob had felt a connection to me with the whole University of Laverne college degree. I willingly accepted Rob’s invitation to come down to the studio and he even offered me to bring along my buddy Connor Grochowski, who like myself is studying communications to be a sports broadcaster at Arizona State University. Connor, my dad, Tom Cerafice, Gregg Hafif, Fenja and myself went down to the studio on a Tuesday during the NBA finals. Rob thought it would be a good idea if I came down during the NBA finals and I was able to watch him on set due to his SportsZone segment following the end of the finals game. All those who went watch the fourth quarter of the finals in the lobby area of the studio while Rob finished up with his producer putting the final touches and highlights together for his show.  I could definitely tell that a lot of time and effort went in to prepping, preparing and even hosting the show.  With about four minutes left in the game Rob came out to the lobby  to grab all of us and take us to the set of the show. When we got on set I was definitely expecting something different than what we had saw, not because it wasn’t well put together or even not a class act, but I was simply expecting to see a room filled with a ton of cameramen and stage directors. The only people that were in the room onset were Rob, Lisa Leslie who was a pleasure to meet and talk to and quite funny, Michael Cooper who is the head women’s basketball coach at USC and even coached the LA Sparks for some time who was also hilarious, and the last person being the stage director. To set went to show not only the cutbacks that it is necessary to make now in our workforce by taking away jobs that may or may not be necessary to conserve on money, but it also showed how far along and how advanced our technology is becoming that we even have the opportunity to take away somebody’s jobs from individuals because technology can do it itself. The cameras were operated in the back control room by remote control. These cameras were super high-tech and from what we could tell were quite expensive. There were TVs everywhere throughout the entire set.  We got to see the green screen where the weather people would stand. It was pretty neat to put a face and actual setting, to what I thought a newsroom actually looked like.  It was so cool to see all the different backdrops and capabilities that they had to alter what the setting looked like on the monitors behind the people that were being filmed.  After the show started, I got to see Rob, Lisa and Michael give the SportsZone segment, and was completely blown away by what I saw.  Seeing and listening to Rob on camera definitely re-instilled my passion and my dreams of becoming a sportscaster. Rob is a true class act and performs at such a high level on camera that I believe people don’t really give him enough credit or even realize how good he is at what he does.  Even though Rob was reading off of a Teleprompter,  the way that he read it in the way that it flowed right out of his mouth he didn’t appear as if he was reading off of and anything. You could definitely tell that he had been doing it for years, with much hard work and much practice he did it flawlessly. Not to mention the improv that he recited by adding in much of his own lines and statistics while he was reading off the Teleprompter. It was definitely a well put together and classy show that was done the right way. Lisa and Michael were to die themselves with their great analysis and input on the game of basketball and on the NBA finals game between the Heat and the Mavericks. You could tell that they all put in much time and effort into doing what they do and they all definitely knew the game of basketball. What I admired him most about Rob is the fact that he doesn’t just know basketball he knows about all sports and that shows me that he is a true sports fan. It was pretty funny to see Lisa and Michael Cooper butt head’s and rag on each other during commercial’s. The accommodations that we received from Rob were pretty unbelievable.After the segment of SportsZone was over, Rob then proceeded to give all of us but to her of the ABC 7 studios. It was so neat to see how much hard work and effort goes in and behind the scenes of the set inside the ABC 7 headquarters.  Rob showed us many different control rooms and transponder rooms, where various people worked fanatically to run a very well put together and while ran segment. Rob also showed us many different offices that people utilized throughout the facility, including his office as well as the weather caster for Channel 7, Dallas Raines, office. Overall it was an unbelievable experience and I only hope that fat opportunities leads to many more for myself as well as for my friend Connor, while we both continue to pursue our dreams of becoming sportscasters of our own someday.  I want to thank Rob and everybody else at ABC for being so accommodating to everybody that came, and we deeply appreciate everything that you guys have done for us in making one of the most memorable nights my life.

Support Group Meeting

Please remember we have an SCI Support Group Meeting

Wednesday, July 13th 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in The Claremont Club Conference Room

ABC 7 “PAY IT FORWARD”, VIVINT.COM, HOME TOUR, SUMMER TIME.. 4TH ANNUAL BP EVENT

Wow, where do I begin? It’s almost June 1 and what a great first half of the year 2011 it has been. It has and will continue to be,  year of “first” for many new and different things, for both with my grandma gone and in my recovery. I can’t even begin to explain how blessed and grateful I am to have the Be Perfect Foundation and so many of you great, supportive individuals as a part of my life. You all have helped solidify the statement in my life, “Through tough times, adversity and change it doesn’t change who we are but merely makes us the person we were supposed to be”. Now more than ever I agree with the statement, for almost every aspect of my life and everything that I am involved with is simply “PERFECT”. Many great things have been happening in my life lately. With the semester ending at school and summer ahead it will give me a time to unfortunately be a little selfish with my therapy with adding some more time in the gym, but at the same time focusing more on the foundation prior to our Fourth Annual Be  Perfect Foundation event. My family as well as our hard-working committee is preparing for a hard-working summer to make the most memorable night in the world for all of you to attend this year’s event. It’s pretty to say that that my recovery as well as all spinal cord injury victims recoveries is an adventure and a road trip taken. Not all of us take the same path to get to and reach our goals of where we are trying to be, but no matter what their hard work and determination we are changing our lives as well as the lives of many others around us.  So for this year’s event I would like to invite all of you to The Be Perfect 4.0 Road Trip. I’ve realized that it is not about how slowly it takes to get there, so long as you do not stop and you keep pushing forward, no matter what’s thrown in your way and no matter what the circumstances are. Have you ever felt that sometimes things are just too good to be true? I am at that stage of my life right now.  Everything seems to be going so well and going my way back my motivation level right now is so high that I am determined to overcome anything that is put my way. I feel as if I’m a new person with a whole new attitude towards life and I am ready to take on the world all at once. This perseverance is because of all of you and your ongoing support that you are giving me and my foundation. This support has generated into much exposure and recognition as of recently. I am sure that you all may have heard or saw by now, that the foundation was recognized and honored on ABC Channel 7 news here in Southern California.  At the beginning of May my friend Chris Siebel and myself had saw a promotion on ABC’s news station that they were promoting the “pay it forward” campaign in honor of Oprah’s last week of the Oprah Winfrey show’s. This campaign would choose from several thousand applicants, and narrow it down to just seven finalists and winners that they would grant a $7000 scholarship each to those nonprofits and charities. Chris and I both sent in applications and nominated the foundation for this scholarship, and to our luck I received a phone call back just days later that the foundation was one of the finalist for the $7000. I was notified by one of the reporters in the ABC studio stating that they wanted to come out to the Claremont Club to do a cover story on the foundation, as they were to do for all of the finalists and then they would announce the winners the following week on television, following the first of the last three of Opera’s final shows. ABC came out and filmed over two hours worth of footage at the Club, of several SCI clients in the program, my mom and dad, Mike Albert the CEO of the Club and both Chris Siebel as well as myself. The reporter’s name was Elex Michelson and he had a great crew of cameraman and coordinators helping him. At the end of all the filming Elex and the crew asked if they could get everybody involved that they had filmed and the trainers at the Club to gather inside of the SCI studio in order to take a group picture. After we all gathered around, Elex preceded by telling me that I was one of the most inspirational stories that he had ever done and that the foundation has done many great things. He then proceeded by saying “Now I know I told you guys that you guys are one of the finalists, but you guys are actually one of the winners of our $7000 scholarships”. Hearing those words come out of his mouth was probably one of the neatest things I’ve ever been a part of. It wasn’t just about the money, but merely the exposure that we are getting on television. And I am not talking about the exposure for myself but merely further exposure of the foundation getting recognized finally for all of the great things that we all have been doing to help other people heal. Collectively all of us are huge part of making this foundation go and changing the lives of many families and many victims of spinal cord injury. The story aired on TV at 4 PM on Monday, May 23 following Oprah’s show on ABC. The whole ABC 7 crew put together a great five minute clip about the foundation and how we had received one of the pay it forward scholarships of $7000. It was a very monumental moment for the foundation, as we were seeing for the first time on national television.  This just goes to show the steps that we are taking and how we are pushing forward to finally get some national recognition and hopefully be able to expand our dollars little further to reach out to more spinal cord injury victims. I am very proud of all of us for doing the great things that we are doing, and I want to personally thank Chris Siebel for nominating the foundation and being a very influential part of getting us on TV. Another neat thing came of this, when I told Elex that I was studying communications at University of La Verne and I had an interest of doing sports broadcasting when I got older. One of his fellow colleagues at the studio happens to be Rob Fukuzaki. Rob does the sport zone at ABC 7 news station. What happens to be so ironic about this is that I met Rob a couple years ago at a Laker game, when he came up and introduced himself to me at a halftime of a game. What’s so unique about this is that Rob graduated from University of La Verne as well, with a degree in communications like myself. Elex said that Rob had asked if I would come down to the studio and check it out during one of the NBA finals games. So I can get a little taste of what Rob does for a living. I’m so excited to hopefully get the opportunity to go down to the studio and check it out and hopefully get to see a little bit of what I’ll be doing here in the near future.Exciting stuff… Another neat thing going on right now with the foundation, is how we were nominated to be on vivint.com as one of the charities that you can vote for and endorse to win prize money based off of the number of votes you get. If any of you are ever wondering how you can help out the foundation, you can simply do it with just your time and effort. I am asking all of you who have a Facebook if you can please go on to vivint.com through your Facebook and “like it”. Then proceed to go back to the vivint.com website and login to their vivint gives back program and find The Be Perfect Foundation under the Pacific region, and click on the drop-down menu and view our charity.  Then you can proceed by clicking “Endorse”, which is more or less as if you are voting for the foundation. You can do this once a day every day and help us fulfill our mission of getting up to the top spot and winning $250,000. Please continue to vote from now until August 27 and we’ll see if we can continue to help others heal by winning this money. This only takes about 30 seconds a day, and if you were ever wondering how you can contribute it is simply with your time and effort to just simply vote for us and you will  help contribute in the best way possible. Thank you to all who have and are continuing to vote. This is another example of awareness that our foundations is receiving on the national level. I can only imagine that our big break is to come through and we are to hit it big. I just want you all to understand that it does not matter how small or how big your donation is. It is simply the thought that counts and the fact that you all have and are continuing to donate to the foundation that means the world to me and two other people. So don’t begin to think that if you just give $25, or even less, or maybe even more that it doesn’t count or doesn’t matter. Any amount of money will help change the lives of others and restore hope that was lost after an injury like this. We are all changing perceptions together.I wanted to extend a huge thanks to the Hollett family, for offering up the services of their beautiful household to the foundation. About six months ago both Maria and Glenn Hollett came to my family night and said that they wanted to open their house up for the first time to the public and do a home tour. for those of you who stall or have seen their house up in North Claremont on the hills below Mount Baldy, you can understand why this would be such a big deal. day live in a beautiful 10,000 ft.² Spanish style home, on 3 acres, overlooking the valley in the city of Claremont. The Hollett’s agreed to open up the services of having a home tour at their house only under the conditions that the Be Perfect Foundation would be the beneficiaries of receiving all the money generated from it. I wouldn’t consider these people strangers but at the same time they were friends of ours that we weren’t necessarily that close with, that we would expect them to open up their homes to us. Needless to say it was an unbelievable gesture on their part and they were more than accommodating to make it a perfect night and weekend. The home tour took place over the weekend of May 13-15. On Friday night the 13th, we hosted a private dinner at the home where people paid to come and have a private tour along with the private dinner down in the wine cellar and game room area. The occasion was very well done and very presentable. All of the feedback I got was that the house in the night was simply unbelievable. The next two days on Saturday and Sunday, the house was open to the public for people to come and walk through the house and take a tour of the home and all of its unbelievable assets. Saturday was the slower of the two days but we lucked out and had a more than steady day on Sunday of people coming through the house. We lucked out and have great weather, on a weekend where we thought we may have been depleted by rain. We were fortunate enough to have a huge group of volunteers who came forward and wanted to give their time by helping out at the tour and standing in the rooms and guiding people through the house. Thank you to all of our great volunteers, helpers and shuttle drivers for an unbelievable weekend that helped generate $20,000 for the foundation. PERFECT..Thank you for the Hollett family who was more than generous by offering up the services of their unbelievable home, their time, and effort and even much support back to the foundation. It’s people like these that keep me going and keep me getting out of bed in the morning, when I begin to think that I hardly knew these people and still they offered a such a great deed. Thank you so much to all involved in a great and productive weekend. I had the opportunity as of recently to speak at two local middle schools here in the area. I spoke to both Claremont’s El Roble, and Upland’s Pioneer middle school. I had an absolute great time at both places speaking to middle school kids about life lessons, decision-making, and what the next couple years had in store for them as they transition into high school. I am hoping each kid got something out of it and hopefully are now approaching their lives with the little different perception of how grateful they should be to the things around them. If I did that, and I did my job. With another successful semester in the record books at University of Laverne, I’m excited for the summertime to really get to focus on the foundation and therapy, as I still pursue and continue on with my journey of trying to get up every single day and putting 1 foot in front of the other and taking the biggest step of my life. All of you other reason for me getting up out of bed every morning and continuing my motivation both in and out of the weight room and gym. I am and always will be continuing to fulfill my obligation for all of you by giving no matter what it is that I do in life all I have, in my pursuit of trying to be perfect. I am hoping that for all of you who have read this, that you will continue to wake up with a new sense of urgency and a renewed attitude that will help you persevere through your day no matter what type of adversity is thrown at you. I am not about the social networking thing as many of you know, but I figured I would offer up something to all of you in regards to the social networking aspect. The Be Perfect Foundation is now on twitter.  If you would like to follow us on twitter our name is BEPRFCTFNDTION.. I apologize for the abbreviated name but that is all they have left and was the closest to the foundation’s name. Make sure to check us out and to vote on vivint.com…. Thank you all for taking the time to read this and I will check back in soon. But for now have a great summer, and congratulations to all of our graduates at both elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges, and always remember to pursue your dreams and never give up. And never forget to Be Perfect….. -Hal

MEN IN THE ARENA….CORY HAHN

With school back in the swing of things, I have been getting asked more to go and do public speaking engagements. The first of the year of which was at St. Julianas Elementary school, youth ministry group. I had the opportunity to speak to young kids in the eighth grade about my story and running the foundation. What followed that speaking engagement was an opportunity to go back to the same venue a couple weeks later and speaking to another youth ministry group for the high school ages from Servite High school, Rosary High school in Troy High school students. I had the opportunity to speak to the students about my story, making life decisions, the transition from high school to college and what the future may have in store for them. Both engagements of which I was very appreciative to go speak at and attend, as I’m trying to fulfill my mission and obligation of giving back to the community and to others, as well as getting across my message to many individuals out there in the world. My most recent opportunity to go speak was one that I’ll never forget. I had the chance this past week to go speak at Webb High school, here in Claremont. Webb is a private school for high school students, where it gives kids a chance to excel in school, all while being put in an environment where they live on campus and have their own dorm rooms as well as their own dining hall. It’s more or less like a college campus environment, one in which it is very small and tight niche yet a very relaxed atmosphere. I was asked by one of the teachers at the school, Kevin Quick, to come be the keynote speaker for a day in which Webb High school puts on for their male students, called Men in the Arena. Men in the Arena is a day in which all of the boys get to experience different guest speakers and different activities together, all of which build their confidence, inspire them, and grow together as individuals. The day has an overall moral and theme of which they’re trying to get across to the students, of teaching them how to overcome obstacles in life. The activities that the kids wen through throughout the day consisted of putting blindfolds on themselves and having a partner to guide them through different activities and going to the dining hall and eating. Another activity was wearing a certain shirt in which the kids were forced to only use one arm while going about every day activities in life, another activity was where the kids were wearing earplugs and realizing what it was like to be deaf and lastly kids had to walk around with crutches. All of these activities gave the kids an appreciation for much of the obstacles that many individuals throughout this world deal with every single that. I being the keynote speaker had another message to get across the kids in another story to tell. I more or less told the young men what life was like in a chair. I enlightened them on the hard work it takes and a positive attitude and perseverance that it requires to deal with this injury on a day-to-day basis. Never once did I or do I ever try to play the woe is me card, or the sympathy card nor do I ever plan on using it. I have realized that we all deal with our own stuff in life. For some individuals things are a little tougher than it is for others, but this gives me no reason to ever take away the fact that these kids may be dealing with their own things in their own lives, my card that I was dealt was just a little different. This doesn’t make me a better or stronger person for this reason, nor does it even make me a harder working person, and it certainly doesn’t put me up on a pedestal and superior to any other person that doesn’t have to deal with this, because I realized that everyone simply deals with their own stuff. This I understand. I truly believe that life is based off of how we all react to it. This I reassured to the young man. I explained to them that I could put all 180 of us in the same exact situation, and each of us is the react entirely different. We all react based off of our instincts at that exact moment and what’s important to us. This goes for anything in life. Our biggest fear is what could happen next and how we’ll react to it in that exact moment. Because no matter what the decision is, that decision can change your life forever. This is something I told the kids, to never look back upon these decisions and regret them, but merely to use them as lessons learned. This is how you live life to its fullest and you don’t take things for granted. Because maybe you have those times where we would normally regret things, but those are the times where reality slaps us in the face and we take the time to slow down, stop, think for a second and maybe even analyze a particular situation and really truly understand how sweet life is, how lucky we all are, and how each breath each step taken in each moment valued is something that makes us grow as a person and something that we can hold onto forever. I expressed to these kids that every moment in our lives should be valued, and that it shouldn’t take something so drastic and so life-changing and dramatic to get us all to stop and realize truly what’s around us. Don’t you find that true? Why does it always take something bad to happen, for us to stop and look around in slow down so life doesn’t pass us by so quickly anymore. I told them of my analogy that I have for life. That life is like a game of baseball and i gave it from the perspective of a batter. Each thing thrown at you more or less each card that you are dealt, is like an opportunity in life. Weather it throws you a curve ball, or a fastball, a ball or strike, you have the chance to swing at it. You can either swing and hit it out of the park, or maybe you’ll half swing or check swing at it and the ball just barely gets through the hole, or maybe you’ll just look at the ball and pass you by. Kind of like a missed opportunity a missed chance, a chance you didn’t take. Life is so simple when you think of it that way. I think all of us get so caught up in life sometimes that we miss the little opportunities that passes by that could change our lives forever, simply because we failed to PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL. I talked to these kids about decisions. How we all have decisions to make every single day. I expressed to them that there is a particular decision they can make every day all while being selfish, is the way in which they can affect the lives of others around them. Because honestly, what’s the point in life if you can’t hope others if you can’t change and affect someone’s life. That’s what we’re all here for. If you ever have any doubts about what your purposes in life, that’s it right there. TO AFFECT THE LIVES OF OTHERS! I can even reassure this point to all of you by telling you what I told them next. Needless to say we all wake up with a different attitude every morning, towards life, what’s going on, and how were even going to approach our day. Some days are better than others, and some days we are in a good or a bad mood. This is just reality of life and most the time there are no ways around it. But what I told the kids was how to reduce the number of these days of being negative and how to affect lives of others all while being selfish. Here is what I told them. I told them that if they woke up everyday and just were happy individuals and put a smile on their face their attitudes would reflect upon the individuals around them and in turn affect the lives of many individuals around them. I told them that this was something that I learned early on in my injury while in the hospital. I talked about how there was a ton of people who came in to see me and support me, and I soon realized that my spirits and attitude directly affected my visitors and my supporters. When I was down then they were down, and when I was happy they were upbeat and motivated as well. I told the kids that this is a way in which they can fulfill part of their lives obligation of changing others’ lives. Simply just by having a good attitude, a good approach towards life and being motivated because in turn that will reflect upon their peers around them and make everybody worked harder towards their dreams and goals in life. I finished my talk by staying with the theme of the day. Speaking to two separate groups of kids, the first being the juniors and seniors, the second being the freshman and sophomores, gave me a chance to have it to be a little more intimate with smaller groups so I was able to get my point across a little better. Needless to say most of these kids were very blessed that their parents were able to send them to school like Webb, which would give them many life opportunities and chances at their careers of their choice, all while setting them up and putting them in a place where they can fulfill their goals and their dreams simply with hard work and dedication. I believe that all of these kids understood this great opportunity that was put in front of them, but I didn’t know if they truly knew what they are all here on this earth for. I told them that life is about finding their purpose, finding their role in life and in their peer’s lives and learning how to play that role to the best of their ability. I assured each and every one of them that they each have a purpose for being here and most of them haven’t even found it yet. That they truly have a gift, something that they can offer to the world and something that can change lives of many individuals around the. I told them about my gift I was given in life. A gift I didn’t necessarily grow into or even find, but merely a gift that was given to me. This gift I told them about, left some of them pondering and even ask themselves questions of how I considered it truly to be a gift. I told them that my gift was my life and my chair. It’s something that only 450,000 Americans get to deal with everyday. Living life with a spinal cord injury. This is something that could be entirely devastating to somebody else but to me I don’t even really see it as an obstacle as much as I do an opportunity. An opportunity to overcome something so drastic and tough as considered to many others, but to me eh it’s just life. It’s how you deal with it and it is how you approach it. My injury isn’t something that gets me down. It’s something that motivates me. Because I feel like I have something to prove, not something to prove to anybody else but myself. Just reassuring myself I can do it. I can overcome anything, and anything you throw at me you better believe I’ll beat, and I’ll never give up, and if you try to push me down I’ll get right back up and if you try and push against the all push even harder, and I won’t stop because I’m relentless and I have to do this. I’m ready for the biggest challenge of all, so whatever you got throw it at me and I promise you I will hit it. You can’t stop me and you certainly can’t prevent me from ever walking again. Because nobody knows how strong I am but me, nobody knows how mentally strong I am but me, nobody knows how much I can take and withstand but me. Nobody knows how hard I could be pushed but me. Nobody knows how much I can deal with but me. Nobody knows what I’m capable of but me. Life is an arena, and we are all the men that live in it. We are all competitive by nature and an athlete in some sense. Athlete in Greek, is somebody who competes for a prize. If somebody thinks we can’t do something, we do whatever we can to prove them wrong and exceed expectations. Because life isn’t merely about success, because that’s defined through somebody else’s perception of you. Life is merely about achievements, that is defined through you and what you put a value on. You see, life truly is a giant arena. It’s so competitive out there. From sports, to competing for whatever it may be, a girl, college, a spot on a team, but whatever it may be, you compete for it and you don’t give up until you get it and you reach it and you can grasp it and hold onto it forever. That’s all within us, and this I do know. This is what I tried to assure to the kids, that they’re all living in an arena and they have to keep fighting and competing and never give up. That’s how they all will reach their goals and become better people, because at the end of the day they will all know something new about themselves. They will all know how much farther they can go and how much farther can push themselves because they did all they could and they didn’t give up and they didn’t stop. This is how you find out who you truly are. By pushing yourself to such mere mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion every single day that you didn’t even know you are capable of doing so. That’s giving life all that it’s worth and that’s competing and this is the arena we live in. That’s what I told the kids, and I told them that my gift was a gift to give back and inspire others, the greatest gift of all… And I never plan on letting go of it for as long as I live. I Am hoping the kids got something out of my talk and even realized a lot about themselves that they didn’t know. If they did that, than I did my job that day by getting them to realize how truly great all of them really are… This very obstacle I deal with everyday I have come to find out, was something that another individual that I just met is dealing with too. As a matter of fact this kid reminds me a lot of myself in high school. Not because I was the athlete that he was, but merely because he reminds me of myself in the sense that we were both athletes, both around the same age, both had a passion for baseball, but merely both of us had a passion for growing up and becoming young men with great work ethics and going off to college. His name is Cory Hahn. Cory is a really good kid raised here in Southern California, actually in Corona as matter-of-fact. Cory went to Mater Dei High school and trust me when I say he was a gifted baseball player to say the least. He graduated last year from high school, and received the highest high school baseball award that you could receive in the state of California. He received the Mr. California award for his senior season, where he batted .411 as a hitter with 10 home runs, and was 14-1 as a pitcher, with a sub 1 ERA and many other great credentials to go along with it. Needless to say Cory is a phenomenal baseball player, who received a full ride scholarship to Arizona State University. As great as this all may sound, I must reassure you this isn’t even very indicative of the type of person Cory is. What stands out even more to me, isn’t just the fact that he is a great player and a great athlete, but merely because he was a hard-working individual. You see a lot of natural God-given talents and gifts are given to people, but a lot of people don’t do anything about it, to truly harness how great they really are and can be at something. This is something that Cory took full advantage of and wasn’t content with what he had. On Sunday, February 21, while starting off Arizona State’s baseball season, Cory found himself to be the only freshman starting on the team. While playing New Mexico State, Cory got on base and attempted to steal second base, whether or not people consider this instance to be symbolic of life of stealing something, or even coincidences in life, maybe or maybe not that rings true for this incident. I merely saw it as Cory trying to steal second, because he wasn’t content with what he had. He wanted more and he would do whatever it takes to move forward in life and move to that next base, simply so his team can win. While sliding headfirst into second base, Cory collided with the second baseman, with the second baseman’s knee hitting the side of Cory’s neck, leaving Cory with a C-5 spinal cord injury. Sound familiar? Cory was at a hospital in Phoenix for 8 days he tells me. After finding out what happened, I made it my mission to get a hold of Cory and his family. Luckily for technology these days, and for what I tell a lot of people I dislike Facebook for the social networking aspect, but I can appreciate it for this respect. Facebook allowed a friend of mine to get in touch with Cory’s girlfriend, which in turn she gave me Cory’s father’s (Dale) number and I was able to get a hold of him and talk him through a lot of things. Cory got transferred to Casa Colina and is there now and probably will be for the next few weeks. Needless to say Cory has a recovery ahead of him, one in which a lot of people won’t give him much hope, and certainly will have their doubts about him. But let me just tell you I have been around this injury enough to know what it takes. To know the type character it takes to overcome this. I have been around enough people to know who has it and who doesn’t. To know who can be bigger than the injury and not let it get to them and who is up to the challenge. Cory is this type of kid. From the second I wheeled in to see him, he had an attitude about him that I could truly appreciate. He’s a fighter and he won’t give up and he’s not going stop until he gets back on the field again and I’m sure he’ll even try and steal second base one more time, just so he can prove to everybody that he was safe, and most of all that he can overcome anything. Cory brings up a good point to me by saying, “If only I slid four inches to the right, or left things could have been different.” It’s so true but unfortunately it’s life and we can’t replay those moments back and we can give that scenario for a lot of instances in life. If only i were 5 seconds earlier or 5 seconds later. It pretty much sucks, but just don’t ask the question’s why me? Or what if? But merely what can and what will? Because asking ourselves those questions to ourselves pertain to how we may be able to alter our future not change our past, that’s pushing forward. Cory reminds me a lot of myself in the sense that he has a great support structure around him. A great family, great friends, and a great community much like all of you who were there for me and all the support in the world behind him to keep pushing him forward, and to keep him moving towards taking the biggest step of his life, and putting 1 foot in front of the other and getting back up on its feet again. I have no doubts, and I am sure he doesn’t either. When I visited Cory I asked him one thing, I asked them if he was ready for the biggest challenge of his life, one in which will be a lot tougher than anything he ever did on a ball field, or even preparing for a game. Cory lives his life temporarily playing a different game of baseball. The one I always refer to, the game of opportunities. Cory knows what his chances are, and the opportunities that are to be put in front of him, and the chances he will need to take. I know Cory won’t strike out because he’s too good of a hitter, he can’t miss, I can only imagine he will hit One out of the park and be cruising around those bases once again. I told him that every athlete gets questioned upon their worth ethic off the field, during downtime and during the off-season. So I told him for anybody who ever had any doubts about you, this is your chance to prove what you can do off the field right now. Because after you overcome this, nobody in the world will ever be able to tell you you can’t do anything ever again. I told him now it’s his turn to hit it out of the park, one more time……… Cory is just one example where my heart breaks, for a kid who had all of his dreams right in his grasp, so young, so determined and a life ahead of him. This rings true for a lot of my other SCI friends, Blake Browning, Zac Collie, Brian Goodwin, Stephanie Aiello, Natalie Buchoz, Aaron Baker, Jordan Wilhelm, Patrick Iveson and a ton of names I haven’t mentioned. As well as many other young kids our same age dealing with the same thing. The best part about all this, is we are the strongest people you know. Because all of those dreams that we did have, are still within our grasp, simply because the type of kids we are, the kids that are growing up into young adults, who won’t stop and are relentless to get back up on our feet once again. So we can all go back out and accomplish all of our dreams and goals once again. So it’s like they were never gone, they are always in our sights, but for now, temporarily, we just have different obstacles to overcome and different dreams and goals to accomplish for the time being. So here in the near future we will all step back out into that arena together, the biggest arena of all, the world that we live in, and I know someday we will all be walking through it together. Still young kids but hearts, desires, and dreams, goals and most importantly a support structure behind us bigger than anything in this world.. We will all stick together and we will walk together again…So whatever the nonsense statistics may be of Cory and Me and every other SCI of ever walking again, whether its 1-3% or even a 100% it doesn’t matter to us. Simply because we are athletes and we play the gave of baseball. The biggest game of all in this world for statistics. So if we figured out how to excel and have great stats in that, I can only imagine we will figure out how not to be apart of that statistic of never walking again, but merely apart of the one of walking, because nobody knows what we are capable of ACHIEVING. Only we do, WE ARE BASEBALL PLAYERS…BE PERFECT

CHECK THE ARCHIVES FOR PREVIOUS BLOGS

2010 A year to Remember……

Wow, what a year it has been and where do I begin with expressing my thanks to all of you who have impacted my life, and impacted the lives of many others through my foundation, and either donating to it or simply giving your time to help others. I will remember 2010 for all my public speaking all over the place.  The Third Annual Be Perfect Foundation event, traveling to Texas to speak at Permian high school,  Claremont High School every 15 minutes, speaking to the football team and Psychology classes, Sycamore Elementary Disabilities Awareness Day, El Roble Career Day, Chapparal Career day, University of La Verne MSS Colloquium, Pioneer Middle School Career Day, and my Alma Mater Sumner/ Danbury anniversary celebration. All of which I had the opportunity to change the lives of others. I met many interesting people and heard many tragic stories in 2010.  I became close with Zac Collie and his family, after a tragic incident at the beach, and met a girl named Stephanie Aiello who dealt with a tragedy of our own driving home from Vegas.  Hopefully 2011 has much greater things in store for them with turning around their lives.  For my best friend Desiree, she experienced what it was like to live with SCI and be in a chair for a couple weeks of her life, as she experienced a horrible jumping into the water accident and landing wrong, which left her with spinal shock. It was tragic on both of us and put much into perspective for both of us, our families and our friends.  It was a scary time thinking that this could happen yet again to somebody I knew, but fortunately she ended up being all right and having a full recovery, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. As for my therapy; 2010 was a year for change with my body. I can only imagine that with hard work and determination, 2011 will be a year of movement for my own body and for many others. 2010 was a year of remembrance for all of us, but more importantly to myself when I think about dealing with adversity through my everyday struggles in life that have been turned into forever great memories and things that I don’t consider struggles anymore due to the nature of all the support that I’ve been given to my friends and family. It has also been a year of remembrance through adversity amongst my own family with the passing of my courageous grandmother Salce. At some point or another it was a gut check to my family and myself with putting life into perspective of what’s important. Immediately I realized that there truly is no point to life without the love and support of your family and your friends. Its funny sometimes to think of what life throws at you and truly what is the reasoning behind it all. I think we all sit there asking ourselves questions sometimes about why me or what if? But when you think about it life is pretty simple. We all have the same fear, the biggest fear of all; the fear of what’s could happen next. How will you react? How will you deal with what’s been thrown at you? Life can be simply related to as an analogy of baseball. Would you duck and miss the opportunity that’s been thrown at you? Or will you swing at it and hit it out of the park? Or will you simply stare at the opportunity and the ball that has come by you, and take a walk? Did you just pass up that chance? See, I think sometimes we all get caught up in those questions, without really realizing that you have to react on the spot, to what’s thrown at you. In a split second your actions can change your life forever. Scary to think about huh? That in a split second your whole world can be flipped upside down and thrown into a tailspin before you even think about getting the chance to react to it.  There are just too many times throughout the course of all of our days where we can sit there and ask ourselves, what if we would have waited 5 seconds later, or got there 5 seconds later? We could have avoided all of that? Things would’ve been different. Both good and bad. But they’re also times where if we would have been 5 seconds earlier things also would’ve been different. So the truth of the matter is, you can’t sit there and begin to ask yourself those questions, because as you react to how time goes on, you can’t go back and change anything, unfortunately. So we could be asking ourselves that very question all the time, but instead you just live with life and continue to move forward. You see, I have come to realize that things truly do happen for a reason. Sometimes it’s not so clear as to why it has panned out the way it has, but simply there is some reason for. It’s our job to find it and figured it out. I mean come on, what’s the fun in life without a challenge, without the unexpected. I think it would be pretty easy to say that 2010 wasn’t exactly the way we all envisioned it. Things happened, things changed, for good and for bad, but nevertheless all for a specific reason. Do you believe in miracles? 2010 changed my life in many ways. Starting with the going back to school at University of La Verne. I had an opportunity this last semester to take a writing class as well as a speech class this semester before. Both of which have altered, affected and changed my writing and speaking habits, and have helped me create a more articulate writing and speaking style with all the public speaking that I do. But I’ve come to realize it’s pretty simple. You see, a lot of us sometimes are so closed off and guarded that we don’t truly get to open up to the ones that we care about. For me this act is a little easier, due to the nature of my personality, vulnerability, and how I express myself, much to the power of emotion through my words and actions. I have come to realize it’s not what you say or what you think, it’s how you say it and put it into words to others that can separate you from somebody else. I have prided myself on expressing my true feelings not just through my road to recovery, but I have my entire life even since I was a little kid. Yes at times I’m pretty philosophical and go into much depth about what I’m feeling, but let me assure you for all of you nonbelievers, you truly can affect someone’s life just through the power of words. Isn’t that amazing to think? We all sit there sometimes and scheme different ways of how we can change and affect someone’s life, yet it stares us right in the face and is so simple; just express yourself. I have come to realize and developed many new techniques to use this expression in my everyday life; with the people I meet, in my studies and in school, and in my therapy. Sometimes I get so caught up with thinking that I won’t be understood by many people, but I just let it fly and usually go off-the-cuff. When I develop speeches I don’t ever write anything out because I think truly when you’re a public speaker it comes from your heart. I have so many things to say that I’ve never have gotten that chance to put it all into words. But now more than ever I assure myself with leaving it all out on the table and having no regrets. I live by a simple motto with giving it my all, and what comes along with that is saying everything I need to say to everybody, everyday. It helps me sleep better at night knowing that there wasn’t one more thing I wish I had said, if something were to somehow happen, then I wouldn’t see that person ever again. I wish I could get people to think like this more often, because it could make us all so much more appreciative for the things around us and the people that we have in our lives. Things truly can change in a split second and I’ll be the first to admit that. I’ve had many opportunities issued to me, to change others’ lives and have taken advantage of every moment. This is year three of my recovery, and it’s pretty easy to say that it is three times as special as it was in year one, with every breath I take, every muscle contraction that make, every push that I make, life becomes that much more sweeter when I still realize I shouldn’t be here, and there is a reason for that. Never once do I take my life, my family, my friends, or the things around me for granite. I constantly and reassuring myself that these things are important to me so I never live with any regrets. When we had our third annual event this year, I was yet again blown away by our turnout and the money we made in a down economy. Not only did you all affect my life that night, with an amazing community and group of friends coming together. But let me assure you that you affected the lives of many others through the money that we raised and the families that we were able to help over the course of the year. I think the best part of it all and having my foundation, is it doesn’t give me a chance to think of my own situation and what I’m dealing with, because quite frankly I meet so many other individuals and family every day that are far worse than I am that it puts life back into perspective for me, that I really don’t have it that bad. I think if I can get people to realize this; both able-bodied and spinal cord injuries, that it will make us all much more happy, content and appreciative people for what we have. I think of what is going on throughout the world now; the war in Afghanistan, the troops over there fighting for our lives and our freedom, the poverty that goes on every day throughout the world, and it makes me think about how lucky I really am. Life isn’t so bad when you think of it that way. Is it? I’ve learned many life lessons in 2010. I also refer to life as an analogy to a stoplight. A stoplight is something that we all are constantly faced with every single day. It’s decision time, as we approach the stoplight is either green (go), yellow ( slowdown), or red ( stop). Now think about life for a second, and think about the events that we face every day, the opportunities that arise, and the decisions we have to make on the spot every single day. In some way shape or form they are all like stoplights. We have decisions that need to be made instantly. We could either not think about it and just keep going with the green light.  Or maybe we could stop and say no with the red light. But at some point or another we are all faced with that yellow light. It’s that opportunity that puts life into perspective once again. Whether you are driving or this is something that is really happening in your life; it’s your opportunity to slow down to take a step back, and gather yourself once again and then continue going after the fact. We all rush through life, sometimes too quickly. This can be bad. Simply because it doesn’t give us a chance to stop and think about and realize the true beauty of what is going on in all of our lives. We don’t get a chance to look at the little details of what is going on. This is why we are left so confused sometimes and asking  ourselves those very questions of why me or what if? Have you ever thought of it that way? That maybe there is something you missed, that you didn’t slow down long enough to realize what was going on around you? We all drive down the road every day and are faced with that yellow light. For now on that should be a sign of all of us to slow down and stop and not to rush through it. Because quite frankly what is the rush? Tomorrow isn’t going to come any quicker. You can’t speed up time, you can only speed up how fast you go through it and that only leaves you more chances to miss certain opportunities that you could’ve taken, and leaves you with regrets. This is something that I’ve realize and have been very conscious of. I can’t speed up my recovery, so I might as well value and cherish every moment now. Because when I look back on it five years from now when I’m walking, it will all be that much sweeter to me, because I valued every moment and I overcame everything and every obstacle that life has to throw at me and I crushed it. I stomped on top of it and walked right through it. That’s the power within myself that nobody will ever know. So no matter what is thrown at me next I will be ready for, simply because I live my life to the analogy of a stoplight. I slow down at those yellow lights when there is questions, I assess them, take all of it into consideration, then act upon it in a split second. One lesson and thing that I heard this year that changed my life forever was a few quotes. One of which said, “ Through tough times, change, and adversity it doesn’t change who we are as people but simply makes us the individuals who we are supposed to be.” There is so much truth in that, when I think about my life over the past 3 1/2 years, and what my purpose is now that I could never have  fathomed the day I got hurt, and was laying there asking myself the questions of how I thought it was helpless, I would never be able to give back to others again, and change somebody else life. I could never have been more wrong, after everything that has happened has exceeded my own expectations, as well as doctors and therapists, as miracles continue to happen in my life every single day. I will leave you all with this quote that changed my life, “Success in our own lives is determined by other people, but achievements are determined by ourselves.” Think about that quote for a second and how it really is the truth for all of us in our lives. Sometimes we get so caught up with living the lives that others want us to live and their own determining of what they believe, of how successful others are. But why does it matter how successful others believe we are? When we think of ourselves and what we have done with our own lives, we think of achievements. Those are things that are self-imposed, the goals and expectations we had put upon ourselves. Those of the things that matter, the challenges we put in front of ourselves without the motivation of others. These are the things that actually determines who you are as a person and what your character is, what you feel you have achieved. Those are the things that you’ll leave behind as your legacy, and that will continue to help others forever. So with 2010 coming and going in a blink of an eye, with many of our lives different and forever changed, we will share memories that we had, remember the times of adversity that we didn’t wish upon ourselves and learn from them, all while moving forward. Remember our loved ones, and cherish every breath that we take every single day. We all have a great 2011 ahead of us, with many memories to be shared, many events to happen unexpectedly, many opportunities to arise that can either be taken or not, with the economy coming back around once again, but more importantly, many lives to be affected and changed forever through The Be Perfect foundation. I love you all and thank you for your support, and the help through the tough times and adversity. R.i.p. Courtney Stewart (4-9-09) I love you grandma Salce, 10-10-10 I will remember forever…… Be Perfect