SCORE: Chad Crittenden’s Strategy for Overcoming Life’s Obstacles
CHAD CRITTENDEN never considered doing the New York City Marathon—even when he had two feet.
Chad’s right leg was amputated in a battle with a rare but deadly cancer almost a decade ago. Since then, he gained notoriety as the first amputee to participate on CBS Television’s Survivor and as a spokeman for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Even though he has competed in numerous challenging athletic events since his recovery, his carbon-fiber right foot had never found it’s way to New York City’s legendary event. Until this year.
Things changed, in part, because of an opportunity to make his participation a fundraiser for Grassroot Soccer (GRS), an organization that uses the African continent’s passion for soccer as a tool for HIV prevention awareness.
Chad would be running the New York City Marathon with his fellow Survivor, friend and co-founder of GRS, Ethan Zohn cheering him on. The two had planned to run the 2009 marathon, but Zohn was diagnosed with cancer in 2009. The diagnosis had come just as unexpectedly as Chad’s diagnosis eight years before.
Chad had a unique opportunity to role model for his friend. Synovial Sarcoma claimed Chad’s foot, but not his spirit. After opting to have his foot removed to avoid the reoccurrence of a malignant tumor, Chad’s speedy recovery and new, cutting edge prostheses opened the door to an amazing new set of opportunities—Survivor and beyond. While Ethan fought for his life against Hodgkin’s Disease, Chad prepared for the marathon. Ethan’s battle renewed Chad’s commitment to increase cancer awareness and share his story of triumph.
Chad’s story provides the framework for his inspiring keynote Discover the Will to Survive. Chad describes some of his experiences on Survivor along with valuable lessons he has learned through this climb from the depths of despair to the attention of a national TV audience. Chad shares some of the things he has used to overcome obstacles in life, and achieve and created something that he calls Conceptual Tools, in the hopes that audiences will be able to take something tangible away from his program. These Conceptual Tools—Steps, Circumstances, Optimism, Risk and Experience—are the core of Chad’s programs and deliberately form the acronym S.C.O.R.E.
Steps - Setting big, long-term goals for yourself can be daunting. By breaking down large goals into a series of smaller, more easily attainable ones, Chad demonstrates how painless this process can become. By taking smaller steps toward his goals, Chad was able to achieve great things, and he shares this strategy.
Circumstances - We have very little control over what life deals us on a daily basis. Whatever circumstances present themselves to us, we need to accept them. However, we do have a hand in molding those circumstances to our liking, once we’ve formed a plan for bettering out lives.
Optimism - All plans for achieving one’s goals must rest on a firm foundation of confidence. Knowing that you will be able to do it and knowing that that goal is within reach will be your vehicle.
Risk - You may be presented with opportunities, but the key is stepping up, moving outside your comfort zone, and taking calculated risks to accomplish what you strive for.
Experience - Everything we work for is inconsequential, unless we can appreciate and experience what we are doing right now, and live in the present. Worrying, oversscheduling and anticipating can be counter-productive; it is important to realize that life is not a calendar—life is experience.
Ethan is recovering now and doing well, and soon he will be back on the road as part of the CAMPUSPEAK speakers team, educating students at college campuses nationwide. With one more marathon under his belt—this one benefiting his friend Ethan—Chad is more excited than ever to motivate, empower and excite college audiences everywhere.
For more information about Chad and his keynotes for college students, click HERE.
For more information about the Challenged Athletes Foundation,
visit challengedathletes.org
For more information about Grassroots Soccer,
visit grassrootsoccer.org
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