All right, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals who
are building accessible businesses advocating for inclusion or excelling an adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities by amplify their
ideas and voices so more businesses and organizations can do the same.
Today we're joined by Tim Alexander, speaker, author, athlete, husband.
Tim, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you so much for being here.
Tim's out from Atlanta for a keynote at this YMCA presentation, sharing the role of the
YMCA in your life as well as the adversity that you've overcome.
Maybe we can start with the YMCA's role and both your upbringing and now are you involved
in various capacities?
Thank you so much, Brandon, for allowing me to be here from Birmingham, Alabama.
My YMCA was the Northeast YMCA and I've been a part of the YMCA from a minor to teenager
to young adult and still now involved with the YMCA.
You know, just on the mission of building communities and developing our young adults
through the comprehensive resources that we have.
And you don't really know that growing up in it, but as you become older and wiser,
now you're able to look back and see what they were doing and why they were doing based
on the needs.
So I'm very thankful for the YMCA.
It's bigger than the YMCA song that we love.
It's the belonging of the mission and each individual that makes up the mission.
So thank you.
Yeah, the reason that we personally loved working with the YMCA was like you mentioned
that mission of creating access and inclusion, not only for people with disabilities, but
all ages.
Right.
I wonder if other gyms and organizations can kind of execute a similar model to kind
of reduce some of those barriers and increase participation across all ages.
What have you personally found in terms of the YMCA that has helped you post injury kind
of just in your career as a whole?
I think about going back home when I had my injury at 17 years old, we did not know anything
about the handicapable community.
If I'm being completely honest, that was one of the reasons why I was suicidal because
we didn't have resources.
We didn't have any exposure to an area where we knew the even first question to ask.
And so I challenged and struggled a lot by just saying, if I'm going to be like this
the rest of my life, it might as well pull the plug.
And so I beat that moment and then feeling came back and I became a paraplegia from the
waist down, but I still wasn't happy or whole in my mind or happy with myself due to a lack
of resources.
And quite frankly, you don't see a lot of chair users around, right?
When you're in therapy, you see everybody that's injured or wounded.
But once you get released to go back and transform in your own rehabilitation way, you don't
see it.
So I had to become, you know, it's a lot of quotes out there.
There is not change.
You become change.
And so I immediately had to become what I wanted to see, right?
While being a one day show, but I didn't have to do it alone.
I was able to do it with the Northeast YMCA.
And remember, I learned how to be a lifeguard at the YMCA.
And so I remember becoming a paraplegic lifeguard.
Thankfully, nobody ever drowned it, right?
But I was still able to jump in there and get them.
They just gave me an opportunity to live out my why, right?
By starting with my what?
And so from there, I started working with other departments and working with other programs.
And it is true.
Once you get your purpose, once you get your vision, once you get your mission and your
statement and still doing your heart, then it will innately be a part of you wherever
you go, wherever you grow.
So here I am now, one of the most sought after speakers in this world, an influential leader.
I'm still living on basic principles that I learned at the YMCA because we as people,
we make different things hard, right?
My cousin just graduated with his CDL license.
And I said, okay, tell me the first thing you do when you get in your truck.
He was like, what you mean?
I said, tell me the first thing you do.
Oh, I'm gonna check my mirrors.
I'm gonna let my truck warm up.
I'm gonna make sure my side mirrors and everything I can see.
I said, yeah, that's the first thing you're supposed to do when you get in your car.
So the farther we grow in life, sometimes the farther we grow away from the basic things.
And so I've just learned that so that you don't get burnt out in life and through life
or which are life, just always go back to the basics.
And so I've been living off the basics.
Never forget where you come from.
Come back to see where you come from.
Never forget that your resource help, that your resource help, right?
Come back to see how your resources is helping.
Never forget that you were alive even in a dark place.
Come back and meet other people who may be in a dark place where you can be their light.
Never forget that to whom much is given, much is required, which is a Christian principle,
that the YMCA is built on Christian principles.
So come back and see that to whom much is given, much is required.
Never forget that you can never give honor to something that you haven't been exposed
to.
So this new world that you're exposed to, come back and expose it to our young adults
who have never been to New Hampshire, who may never come to Massachusetts, who may never
fly into Manchester airport.
Come back and let them know that there is a world out there that's willing to embrace
you and give you a sense of belonging, but you have to have the resources and become
a resource, else you will never be able to see that, right?
And seeing that is not common.
I'm saying this for sale at a time, common sense ain't common, right?
I got a friend that's partially impaired that I have to lead across the street.
But as I'm leading them, I'm still like, hold up, you don't see this stop sign?
You know, because I just forget sometimes, right?
Sometimes we do forget when we caught up in that moment.
But one day he said, man, I can see better than most people who got sight because what
you see right now is your sight, but what you see for the future is your vision.
You get what I'm saying?
And so that's the key that we must always live outward, not about what we see right
now in sight, but what we see for the future, which is our vision.
I'm so thankful.
And I come from a background that challenged us to imagine based on a realistic mind.
I don't have unrealistic dreams.
I have realistic achievable dreams that I know is going to take not only effort, but
a valuable effort branded to get there.
Sorry to give you that rant.
No, no, that's exactly what I want.
My role is always just to stay out of the way of the speaker.
So at the core of kind of what you were mentioning there was representation.
You left the hospital and you didn't see a lot of wheelchair users.
And I think that's one of the things that we really try to advocate for is that like
demystifying disability by including them in regular facets of life.
So you might go to a gym and you look around and you don't see anyone in a wheelchair and
you immediately think, oh, maybe this isn't the place for me.
Right.
But if you walk in and you see able-bodied individuals, wheelchair users, individuals
of visual impairments, you start to think that, okay, maybe this is.
So I think that's like the model that the why is after.
It's a model that we're after at my gym.
And I think it's essential for getting people involved in programs like this.
Is that representation piece?
Did you have anyone after your injury that you kind of like looked up to or that started
you like guiding you in the right direction?
Yeah.
So I believe or not, I look up to a lot of people who've been through far greater things
and I'm going through and growing through right now that still made it.
So a person that I met in my journey was a gentleman who got hit by a train.
He was a chair user for about 20 years.
Right.
He was doing better than what he was when he got hit through, through nutrition, through
the ability to go out and be unique and understand that there is no physical limit to human
achievement.
There is no fitness limit to human achievement.
If you have someone that's willing to have equipment and accessibility accessible for
all, right?
And willing to have a person to not focus on what you can do.
There's no need for you to be like, we're going to focus on you doing leg press the
entire time.
I may not come back to your training, right?
Because I already know that that's going to be a challenge for me to continue to do.
I may can try, but then we got to also learn to really pour into people's screen.
What can you do?
Yeah, we call that bright spot to the gym.
So like you can challenge clients in various ways and whenever we have a client with an
SCI or with a lower body impairment, we're like, we're still going to try to strengthen
legs because it's important to get you upstanding, trying to do different things.
But we also want to kind of like you said, play to your strengths, emphasize bright spots,
see what you can excel at and make sure that you leave the gym feeling accomplished.
So I'll never forget I had, I left through, I was leaving the Y and I had to go to a facility
called the Lakeshore Foundation.
Yeah, I'm familiar with that.
I was up at UAB, that's a partnership.
They work heavy with the Y and I went up to the Lakeshore Foundation and it was like
it was like a handicapable universe, right?
Like everybody here was dealing with something like, you know, if you in this gym, you got
something you growing through.
Everybody's unique.
Everybody is handicapped.
But I remember at first I was like, man, I don't want to work out here because I was
thinking I would never get better if I just do whatever chair use and everybody else is
doing.
Like, no, I want to go out there and work and work out in general society and go out
there and go to the lifetime fitness or planet fitness or Riviera, whatever.
But then I'll never forget I saw a basketball come across and once the athlete, always an
athlete.
And I'm a football player, but I saw this basketball and I'm like, man, let me see if
I still got it had not even shot a basketball after my card today.
So I'm dribbling and I shoot my first shot.
I make my first shot.
Get the ball again.
Shoot my second shot.
Make my second shot.
Get the ball again.
I go out to the three point line, let the bottom of the net.
Boom.
I hear coach yell out, I want to offer you right now to the University of Alabama to
come and play wheelchair basketball.
Say, man, I want to play wheelchair basketball.
I want to learn how to walk again.
I'm going to walk.
He said, well, in the meantime, as you're learning how to walk again, we still want
you to be an athlete.
I did not know that I didn't have to give up walking to become a paraplegic athlete.
I didn't know.
I just thought like, Hey, this would hinder me.
But no, this was going to give me the nutrition and the fitness and that coaching that I
have every athlete loves every person loves to even feel like they were on the team.
If they wasn't, I would still get that moment again.
And that's what truly pushed me to understand.
It's not about where you are.
It's about where you're going and you can't base your eyes on what you see because it's
temporary.
Base your eyes on what's coming next.
And so just that partnership.
I'm so thankful that the YMCA was able to direct me to the Lakeshore Foundation.
It was just a circle of faith and that's what truly allowed me to advocate.
I became a poster boy for the, I was a poster boy for the Y became a poster boy for the
Lakeshore Foundation.
I became a role model.
We created a program called Cunner Roll with me.
We take away, I know how you feel until you really been in the chair all day and it gives
you a little bit of knowing because you'll never know how we feel unless you have, you've
been given an injury like that.
You can know a little bit, but eventually you don't get up and get out and walk.
So I was just able to be what I wanted to become based on an epic experience that was
given me.
And that's why I talked about in my message, the epic experience of the opportunity, right?
Coming to the Y, coming to Lakeshore, coming back to the Y, coming back home.
It allows me to be reminded of the experience that allowed me to participate in that created
an image of connection that said, I can do this, but not only I can do this, other handicapable
communities in the world can do it too.
And so that's why I live my life is saying, okay, what are you doing for the handicapable
community?
Right?
How are we making their life accessible for all?
How are we giving them the same opportunity as the next person?
Because now I know, because I've seen life from walking one day to rolling the nicks,
now trying to re-walk.
So as soon as I figure it out, I turn around and advocate to help somebody else figure
it out.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, the Lakeshore is one in a million.
Yeah.
We use some of their resources.
Dr. Rimmer from the Lakeshore has the AIM Free manual and they just opened a sports
performance lab.
Okay.
They're doing a bunch of research on wheelchair racing and trying to come up with better standards
for Paralympic athletes.
So that's awesome.
Like obviously that's like the gold standard, but then we try to impact like local communities
and all the regular recreational activities so you can continue to participate.
I was wondering, this is a question that we ask some of our guests who have gone through
like TBIs, SCIs, do you think an acquired disability and losing a goal of yours is more
challenging than someone who might have a lifelong disability?
Yeah.
Give me what you mean by acquired.
Yeah.
Just like, so when you were a senior, you were in your accident and beforehand you had
these visions and you had these dreams and then you were in a traumatic accident versus
someone who might be in a wheelchair since they were born.
Do you think it's a different experience and kind of how do you think people kind of cope
with that change?
It is very different and a different way of knowing this happened to me.
I was born like this or this happened to me or like I met a kid who was pushed in a pool
at five and now she's a part of the handicapped world community.
So it's different strokes for different folks.
That's what I like to say.
Different strokes for different folks.
So I'm like Pepsi, so I'm like Coke, right?
But when you start coming to talking about what you like and what you dislike, then that
opens up a door for you having to explain.
And sometime what you explain can either help someone or hinder someone.
And so what I try to always do, man, for me, I understand and I'm always very, very conscious
of who I'm talking to and what I'm talking about because I was complaining one day because
I couldn't stop having stasms.
But then I met someone who's never had stasms.
So what really helped me is knowing my personnel, but also understanding that yes, it's different,
but it's the differences that allow us to make a greater difference.
We still connect because we are different.
Everybody's different.
The way we live, what we dress, what we like, it's different.
It's different all around you, but it still allows you to make a greater difference.
So that's how I kind of look at you boring like this, this happened to you or this just
happened.
That's how I kind of look at it.
Yes, it's a different lifestyle.
It's a different lifestyle song.
I meet people all the time who have no passion of walking the gear and that's okay because
that's their desire.
It's not my desire.
My desire is I still going to try.
Although I've been given a 5% chance, although it ain't happened yet, that's still my desire,
man, but I'm not going to make you feel bad because that's not your desire.
I just tried a lobster roll.
It was okay to me.
You was like, I don't eat them.
You know what I'm saying?
It's okay.
Man, the guy was like, it's not that I don't like them.
It's just I'm allergic to seafood.
Man, I'm afraid and honest.
I love them.
So different strokes for different folks.
And so instead of focusing on the differences or what makes us different, let's focus on
what connections we may have because we all want and like some of the same things.
And if we are part of the handicapable community, all we want is to live a healthy, long, accessible
life, being able to do things for our own, own our own time and not having to always
have to wait on someone if we're able to do that.
Or if we have to have a caregiver, I had to have a caregiver for about four or five years.
My uncle was my caregiver.
He left his job to be my caregiver.
He had to clothe me.
He had to feed me.
He had to base me.
He was had to take care of me.
My body was performing like a 17 year, a 17 month old.
You know what I'm saying?
And, but he still allowed me to have my own personal space.
Yeah.
So it's like everyone has their own goals and their own goals.
The fact that your goals different than someone else's doesn't diminish the value of their
goals.
It doesn't diminish.
But what, but what glorifies the dignity of the, of the goal is, is we find a common
ground, which is community.
That's why community is what you and I have in common.
Yeah.
I think one of the barriers that prevents a lot of people from being more inclusive
or accessible is communication etiquette.
Some people aren't sure what to say when they see someone in a wheelchair.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
You get that all the time.
You can see like a little kid might walk up and look at your wheelchair and their mom
goes, Hey, don't, don't look at that person.
Don't talk to that person.
And it just kind of perpetuates this narrative of like, Oh, stay away from anyone who's different
than you.
Um, regarding etiquette or language, when you meet someone for the first time, like
if you're walking into a gym and I'm your trainer and we haven't met before, what would
you want me to ask you or talk to you about?
I would honestly, I would ask that you greet me and treat me as you would do somebody else
walking in the gym.
Yeah.
Right.
Like don't, don't devalue me because I look different than you because when I'm looking
at you, I'm like, you look different than me.
How in the world you on two feet and I'm on four wheels and got two feet.
So I'm already like, you look way different than me.
Right.
So it's already a different, but just you pushing me and challenging me the same way
you were pushing challenge anyone.
That's what I like.
I remember my therapist, her name is Natalie Shannon.
She's awesome.
She's five foot.
We used to do therapy and this was me coming back to do therapy for a fourth time.
And I remember going to therapy one day and I said, before we stop, I just want to know,
I want to ask, have you read the doctor report?
She was like, yeah, I read it.
And I said, what did it say?
She said, well, you know, we can tell that you, you have some limitations through walking.
You only have a 5% chance you haven't been able to move and I'm sure you have no, you
don't have any movement right now.
Do you?
Right.
Although she knew I did it.
She still asked.
And I said, well, why do you ask questions?
You already know.
I don't know.
You probably got feeling right before you came in here.
And that meant so much to me.
And so I asked her a question that I never forget.
And I said, do you believe I'll be able to walk again?
And she said, it ain't really about if I believe or not.
It's about what you believe.
And that meant so much to me that she was willing to say, if you believe it, my job is to help
get you to what you believe.
And so when I meet people, when I, when I, when I, when I, when I get with traders, when
I advocate is match my belief realistically.
Cause with technology today, you can walk.
The doctor said I had a 5% chance, but if you put me in some far as gone braces right
now, I can lean with it, throw my leg and walk.
It's going to be, it's going to take me two hours from here to the front, but I can do
it.
And it's all about what are you willing to do?
And so I just like for people to don't assume my friend told me some other day, he said,
I tell my son all the time, don't be the kid in the class thinking you know it all so that
you don't look like, so that this, this is what he really see.
I can't see it.
See, don't be the kid in the front of the class that's just yelling out answers because
you think you know it all, but you're making yourself look not smart at all.
Right.
So oftentimes when we don't know something, we pretend to know and the person who pretends
to know don't know nothing at all.
So instead of pretending, oh, he can't do this or he may not want to do this or he may
not want to get out of the chair and get them on the ground and do push ups or this and
that don't pretend to know, just ask what you don't know.
So when that little kid runs up and that parent grabs away, the first thing I said was chair
this starts at home.
Hey, man, listen, it's nothing wrong with him running up.
The kid may think I'm that grandfather or grandmother.
Do y'all have any chair user in the community?
Oh yeah.
He thinks you're his grandma.
Yeah.
But don't pull him away.
Allow him to steal, come up and to steal, be curious, right?
Because that gives that person a sense of humor that, wow, a little child doesn't think
of a dinosaur or anything like that.
That, oh, let me run up because they like wheels or different things.
So different strokes for different folks.
Yeah.
So it's just like, so you said like to presume competence, ask questions, anyone that kind
of adopts that like growth mindset.
When I'm working with someone who's a wheelchair user versus a client who might have had a knee
replacement or an injury, we're always just trying to figure out what they're able to
do.
Put together a list of exercises that kind of match that level.
Talk about their goals for you.
You might want to walk again, but we also have to address global strength and everything
else.
So find a way to kind of like collaborate between your goals and what I think as a fitness
professional would benefit you like globally from a health standpoint.
So my goal right now is just to be healthy outside of walking again.
I want to be healthy.
I want to compete at the highest level.
I want to ski.
I want to be able to do anything I can do that my health permits me to do.
That's my goal and I, and I attack it every day.
Yeah.
I hit on the ME that you want, just kind of that story as a whole.
I know I'd reading about it earlier this week when I was doing my research.
But yeah, do you want to maybe tell the listeners about kind of how that came about?
The Emmy Award recipient was able to receive the Emmy Award just based on documentation
and fighting and peaceful protest for the UAB bowling and rifle free UAB movement that
took place in 2014.
You know, I'll be talking here today about utilizing your resources as students.
We did not have a lot of resources.
Right.
UAB is a top five medical schools, top 10 youngest in the country, but we still struggle
with resources on how do we get our story out with social media?
The number one influence that we have instant wise is our cell phones.
So I said, we don't have money for cameras.
We don't have money for effect for for to be falling around by the proper.
See, we're going to picture everything, we're going to document everything and we're going
to take notes and everything that we did.
We captured this moment because we was we believed in how big this moment was.
It wasn't just for me.
It was my guy Mike.
It was my girl Courtney.
It was my boy Tray that all of us that kept our devices and became the resource.
And when we brought our program back, our program at UAB in December 2, 2014, I gave
a press conference and told the team when we come back, we'll be bowels by our first
year back.
We're going to win from championships and the world will know our name.
Sam Hutt came down, Marty Smith came down, ESPN came down and said, T.A. you're crazy.
I said, I'm a crazy believer.
Right.
I just believed in the program.
I believed in the community and Brandon, I believed in the program and community when
they announced we were coming back in six months after we raised $48 million as students
that we documented and capitalized everything.
When they announced we was coming back, June 2, 2015, six months later, they nationally
ranked us 132.
It's only like a hundred and yes, only like 130 teams.
We were ranked at the bottom.
And so we took this negative publicity and that became our campaign.
And I said, coach, let's not run away from this.
Let's run to it.
Hashtag 132.
They don't know.
They've ranked us out of 130 some RITs.
We're the last one, but no one knows our narrative.
No one knows what we believe in.
And we documented man from our phone.
We put it all together.
And when the sidewalk film festival came, we all sat down in a row.
My guy Mike, my guy Courtney, my guy trade, who was going to UAB for media.
We all sit in a room and we became a producer.
We became a director and we told the story that we wanted to tell it.
Didn't think anything was going to happen.
We sent it to into the sidewalk festival.
It was like, what you think?
I said, we told the truth.
He was honest and hey, I'm not a cry.
It made me cry.
It made me want to run through a wall.
We got to get the community out to come and see this.
The IMAX Museum in Birmingham, Alabama was like, man, we like this documentary.
So we invited the whole UAB family and everybody to come out and we're watching it in like
four max and it's all around us.
And we're sending the audience like, man, we really got something here.
And so a few weeks after that, we get an email from the National Indian Ward Ceremony organization.
And I think it's a scale.
I'm like, what?
Like this is serious and so I never forget the whole team went up and I'm sitting at
the table with the CEO who's over the image and man, honestly, we're eating the meal.
It's probably the first on core meal I ever ate in my life.
Like I saw stuff on my plate.
I'm saying, like, do I eat this?
Like it was like plants and I didn't know what it was.
It was like purple leaves.
I had never seen purple cabbage in my life.
But anyway, the CEO asked and he says, Hey, you're Mr. Alexander, you're nominated for
any.
He says, how do you feel if how would you feel if you're not an Emmy recipient?
I saw what everybody else was doing when he asked me this question.
It was they set up prostrated.
They wiped their mouths with their nice handkerchiefs that they have.
So I did the same thing like my mouth.
I saw people drinking water or drunk water that crossed my hands over like everybody
else was doing.
I'm leaving him and said, even if I don't win, I'll always be able to say I was nominated
for an Emmy.
Yeah, absolutely.
Right.
And he said, that's the best response I've ever given.
Five seconds after that, as they're playing the stage in the background, the sports program
feature, I get word that I just became an Emmy award recipient just like Charles Barkley,
just like John Madden, just like some of the great celebrities in this world.
They're an Emmy awards one and two, three time back to back.
And they asked me to come out there and speak.
I've only had two bad speeches in my life.
The first speech is when I was speaking in Denver, Colorado, when I found out my father,
who at the time was struggling with dementia, he came up missing right before I got on stage.
The second time was when I gave my Emmy award.
I was so caught off guard because I wasn't expecting to win that if you watched the video
that we show today, I kind of stutter a little bit.
And all I can say, the greatest gift is the gift of giving to who much is given, what
just required.
Y'all have a great day.
I didn't know what else to say because I could not believe that I had just received
one of the highest rewards for humanity just by serving my community.
And it changed my life.
You know what I'm saying?
I never knew how big it was until I see people who have received Emmys End.
I look at that great reward all the time and that's just testament to me to go farther
and do more.
Yeah, it's an interesting contrast between before earlier you mentioned how after you
accent you want to take your life and now you're achieving all these things.
How much better is your life because of your disability?
It has my opposition, it's my inspiration.
This has truly inspired me because there are days.
I mean, you know, I don't say that I struggle, but I have to be mentally strong every day
because when my kids are running or when I go around a family member, what do you do
when you go around a family member's house and a child sees you in a wheelchair?
I think one upstairs and say, come on, Uncle Teal, what do you do?
So you got to still be able to be inspiring when you have those moments.
And so that's why I live out loud.
I have an image on my body that says push, pray until something happens, chosen royalty
on my body right now because I'm using my life as a living example of we don't need
it to be easy.
We just need it to be possible.
But as I told CEO Michelle, I do it with a smile on my face.
I do it willingly.
I do it positively.
I do it.
Why?
Because I've already faced the most difficult time in life.
People say nobody gets a second chance in life.
I got three chances.
I flatlined three times in the hospital.
And even after I flatlined three times and they brought me back to life and said, you
have a severe brain damage, they still said you only have a 5% chance of making it to see
tomorrow.
So 17 years later, here I am still challenging the status quo.
I started first with my mind because I'm still only giving a 5% chance of making it to see
tomorrow.
But what gives me a better chance is my nutrition.
What gives me a better chance is my perspective toward fitness, making the right food options,
living a very balanced and visionary life and understanding that it is what it is.
And really, this is what I tell myself.
I used to always here suck it up.
Now I embrace this up because it ain't nothing good about me.
The only thing good about being in a wheelchair sometimes is you ain't got to wait in lines.
You get free perks.
You ain't got to wait in line if you go to Disney.
You get to get on the plane.
Just a lot of perks that come with it.
But that don't mean sometimes when it's cold.
You put your chair in your car and you look back, your chair gone down.
Or when you're out in public and you know you've been great on your bowel bladder or
your bladder plan and you end up having an accident.
And now you got to stop and go and change clothes and then come out.
Hey, what made you change?
And now you got to explain yourself.
And you really don't like explaining yourself, right?
So those are the things that make you become so mentally driven and so mentally strong
because you don't know what you're going to face, but you got to welcome it.
That's why I don't fly in.
If I have an event, you would never see me and never scroll word.
But if I have an event, you will never see me fly in a day off because you never know
what's going to happen.
Yeah, absolutely.
You see what I'm saying?
So that's just my life.
Be prepared for the unexpected, be prepared for the unexpected, but being prepared is
very minimal because I have to prepare my mind every day.
Every morning I listen to a song called optimistic.
It's about a group called, it's about a group called Sounds of Blackness, man.
Coming to America, they have a song called optimistic and the song says you can win
as long as you keep your head to the sky.
Yeah.
So, a lot of these episodes we wrap up like our taglines, making fitness accessible.
So the question, the question that we ask all of our guests is what do you think needs
to be done for the industry to be more accessible as a whole?
I think every gym needs to have more than two accessible equipment.
If you have a gym, everything in that gym needs to be accessible, accessible in a way
that your family members would say, I'm comfortable enough of laying on this bench.
I'm comfortable enough of doing this if you have to walk away and help somebody else knowing
that you're coming back.
I don't have to think twice about is there a place I can get out and stretch or a wheelchair
height massage table I can get on and lay out to always think of those who need you
to think about and to make your place accessible.
Fitness is all about how accessible you can be for others.
And so I just want people to do that.
And by doing that, people will be able to grow in health and have a healthy mind because
they have a place where they can operate and do fitness and bring for transformative growth.
So, Tim, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you for coming out.
It was nice to meet you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to the Adaptex podcast.
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Until next Monday.