In his mid-twenties, Mike Taylor was an English bloke on the move—a fit and healthy senior designer, a man about town, an elite rower, a skier, and a hiker. On an around-the-world trip at the age of twenty-six, Mike had his first symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS), though he didn’t know what it was at the time. Subways and buses became difficult, then hard, then impossible. He was diagnosed with MS, and over the next six years, his symptoms increased until at the age of thirty-three he was confined to a wheelchair.
Mike faced considerable challenges, but he never let his condition stop him. In the midst of his deteriorating physical condition, he purchased his first home and started his own design company—appropriately called Spirit Partnership. The same year that he got his first wheelchair, he swam the English Channel. He then swam from Mallorca to Menorca (25 miles), and from Catalina to Santa Monica (38 miles) three times.
Mike co-founded the international charity, Turning the Tides. He organized fundraising events that reached global audiences in the millions, and he helped fund myelin replacement research by Dr. Timothy Vollmer at Yale University.
On the last of his Catalina adventures, Mike met his wife Helen. Encouraged by friends and associates, Mike launched a dynamic speaking career. His signature speech was titled “The Domain of Opportunity: A Simple Shift of Focus.”
Interviewed by Winn Claybaugh, Mike shares a positive, uplifting message about focusing on what you have, not what you don’t have, and on what you can do, not what you can’t. His emphasis on the domain of opportunity rather than the black hole of despair will certainly add purpose to every listener’s life.
RELATED LINKS