The speaker recounts a spontaneous pneumothorax in his 20s that required a pleurectomy and six months without exercise. After recovery he gained a renewed appreciation for playing football, winning multiple team awards that season. The talk uses this personal story to prompt listeners to consider what they take for granted and to encourage signing up for a thrice-weekly newsletter.
Okay, so Monday we are back with our walk and talk. Before we talk and walk, I just want to show you what a lovely building this is. Yes. If you can even see that, that's the driveway of dreams. You know, you want to put some little fire pits up that have people drive up and see your beautiful house as you welcome them. That's what you get for the living in the Cotswolds. But it is pretty windy today, so I'm heading into the. The woodland a little bit. So it's not quite as windy whilst I'm walking and I'm talking. But here we're going to talk about something which I think really applies to a lot of people, and you'll definitely be able to apply it to your life. And it's a big lesson I learned. But I'll start off by saying the. The words that I heard said to me many, many years ago, which was, anthony, I'm really sorry, but you'll probably never play the trumpet properly again. Pretty hard words to hear if you play the trumpet a lot. But it turns out they'd actually got the wrong man, which I'll delve into. But let me fly my eye. How have I done that? Let me go back maybe 20 years and we can talk about gratitude and how it links to yourself and how you can apply it to your life. Towards the end of the video. But, yes, I'm in my 20s and one day I'm leaving my. My friend's house. What is going on here? This is. I'm really in the. In the jungle. Oh, my God. This is nuts. Never mind. I'll be fine. I'll be. I'll be absolutely fine, probably. So 20 years ago, I'm at my friend's house, I'm putting my shoes on, and as I get up, I feel this pain in my chest. Feels a bit like I've been winded. Anyway, I start driving home and the pain doesn't go, which is never a good sign. And as I'm driving, I start to get those feelings of what you would consider would be symptoms of maybe a heart attack. A lot of heart attacks around at the moment. I wonder what that is. And, yeah, my left arm was going numb, my chest was hurting, having trouble breathing properly. And considering that my dad or my grandfather and my granddad had both had heart attacks, it just made me worry. Anyway, long story short, what was happening was I had a collapsed lung. Not ideal. And I was only my 20s and obviously I'd had no impact. I hadn't been doing anything Strenuous, etc etc and I went to hospital, got rushed to hospital, honestly thought I was dying. It was pretty bloody painful and you could literally hear my heart beating where it was kind of the, the air that was going into my lungs and surrounding my chest, in my chest cavity was not a great experience. Anyway, I had operations and I had a. Well, that was called a spontaneous pneumothorax. But what I then had was an operation called a pleurectomy. Don't look it up, it's not very nice. But basically they pretty much deflate your lung and then do keyhole surgery to scratch the outer lining and re inflate it and stick it to the outer wall of your chest. Beautiful stuff, especially if you're just having a lunch. But here's what happened. I basically couldn't do any exercise for maybe six months, wasn't able to get out of breath, I wasn't able to do anything like that at all, which I found really hard because I like to be out moving, playing football, everything else like that. And when I was in the hospital, the final operation I had, which they did the pleurectomy, they were saying very much about, oh, the surgeon, he's going to come and see now. And he sat down and yeah, literally said, looked at my notes and he said, you know, basically you won't be able to play the trumpet again or certainly any kind of, you know, instruments like that. And I was like, right. And I said, I don't play the trumpet, I never have. And he'd got the wrong notes. And what he meant to say to me was that I might not be able to play football again, not the trumpet. So tragedy over. Wasn't planning on doing the old trumpet anyway or tromboning or anything like that. Don't make any funny comments. But suddenly I wasn't allowed to play football for a while. And here's what happened in those six months. I stayed at home, watched a lot of telly, watched the World cup, which was even more painful because I knew I couldn't even play football. But here's what happened in the months preceding, no, the months running up to me going back to play football. I was due to play my first five A side game and I remember being at my job in the city and literally they said to me, right, you know, you're good to go now, you're good to start playing five a side again. And kid you not, the afternoon I was due to play five a side just for the company. So it was fairly light stuff as the people threw the kit at me, and I was sitting at my desk to be told, you know, you're going to play tonight. I turned round to put it on the side, and I felt something in my chest go. And I was like, that doesn't feel good. And I stayed quiet. As men do when things go wrong naturally. That's what we're good at. And I just sat there and I thought, I think I can feel my lungs just torn again. And that is not a good feeling. So, yeah, I sat there for a few minutes, and suddenly I felt that little twinge in my arm that I recognized that feeling. And my mate said to me, you're right. And I said, I think my lungs just torn again. And he's like, don't mess about, you know, don't be stupid. And I was like, can you call me an ambulance? And he's like, you're an ambulance. No, he didn't say that, but he was like, no, you messed about. I said, no, no, seriously, like, might look okay at the moment, but probably in about 10 or 15 minutes, I'm going to be in a lot of pain. I need to go to hospital. And, yeah, so carted off on a stretcher very soon after, and. And again, you know, that was very. Just a short time that I was off for. But here's the thing. When I finally got fit and went back to playing football, because I'd missed it so much, and this is where you can apply it to anything in your life that we'll talk about, but me, I enjoyed football so much when I got back to it, because I thought I was going to have it taken away from me. And that was one of the most important things in my life, was playing football. And here's the thing. That first season I went back, I didn't even play a full season. I think I missed about the first six or seven games, but I, unsurprisingly, won footballer, player of the year, managers, player of the year, you know, most effort that year, etc. Etc. Because I had, like, a newfound appreciation for just playing football. And I wonder for you, what is there in your life that you look around and maybe at the moment you take, you know, take for granted that you don't have a lot of kind of gratitude for that if it got taken away from you. And it might be a. It might be kids, it might be a job, it might be a partner, it might be your lifestyle, whatever, but what is it in your life that at the moment, you kind of take for granted? If it got taken away for some reason, be it health scare or money issues or whatever, you would be like shit. I never appreciated how much I really enjoyed that or was lucky to have it in my life. So anyway, something to think about on a Monday. What is there that you're missing that you could be grateful for in life? Doesn't mean you have to start a gratitude journal and start being thankful to the trees and everything. Thank you trees. But certainly applying it to something in your life could really help you have a newfound appreciation for it. Anyway, that will do for now. Also, just to remind you guys if you don't already to sign up for a game, changing weekly E Letter goes out on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays at 10 o' clock to get guys all across the world. And we like to put in some really interesting, thought provoking content to help guys live as best a life as they can and also do some good stuff for the people around them. So that should do. I will be back tomorrow for Walker Talk on a Tuesday. And remember, the world needs strong men. Right? I'm out of here.
