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Pete – How did you handle going back to work?

Pete – How did you handle going back to work?

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So, after my injury, and my rehab stay, and my first tastes of confidence, and my building momentum to try to get my life together, I felt like I needed to go back to work as quickly as possible. I needed to be engaged in normal activities, things th... Show More

So, after my injury, and my rehab stay, and my first tastes of confidence, and my building momentum to try to get my life together, I felt like I needed to go back to work as quickly as possible. I needed to be engaged in normal activities, things that felt like my life. So, after my discharge I went home, I struggled for a little while. I started to build confidence and to keep that confidence building, I felt like I needed to get back in some kind of normal activities that felt like my life. So, I needed to go back to work. I went back to my regular job, selling motorcycles and pitching motorcycles to people. And it gave me an opportunity to address the challenges of daily life with spinal cord injury. My employers were very generous with me and understood that maybe I would show up at my regular time, but maybe something would happen and I would need to leave early. And they said that would be just fine, and they didn’t even ask me for the details of what I might be talking about, which gave me a sense of self respect because they were willing to respect me regardless, which bolstered my sense of self respect, which was challenged by this injury. I stayed doing this type of work for about a year, and it became quite evident that it wasn’t a good fit anymore. While I enjoyed the opportunity to be in that normal environment for myself, I was the reason you didn’t want to ride a motor cycle. It’s hard to market and sell something when you represent the purchaser’s worst fear. So, given these circumstances, I started to consider my other options. I had been involved in the mentoring program at Shepherd’s Center all throughout that year, and a position became available and I applied for it. It just fell into place. So, the heaven’s opened up and the opportunity dropped out for me. It was perfect.

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Pete – How did you handle going back to work?

Pete

Injured in 2004 at age 33, paraplegic
More Videos by Pete
Transcriptadd

So, after my injury, and my rehab stay, and my first tastes of confidence, and my building momentum to try to get my life together, I felt like I needed to go back to work as quickly as possible. I needed to be engaged in normal activities, things that felt like my life. So, after my discharge I went home, I struggled for a little while. I started to build confidence and to keep that confidence building, I felt like I needed to get back in some kind of normal activities that felt like my life. So, I needed to go back to work. I went back to my regular job, selling motorcycles and pitching motorcycles to people. And it gave me an opportunity to address the challenges of daily life with spinal cord injury. My employers were very generous with me and understood that maybe I would show up at my regular time, but maybe something would happen and I would need to leave early. And they said that would be just fine, and they didn’t even ask me for the details of what I might be talking about, which gave me a sense of self respect because they were willing to respect me regardless, which bolstered my sense of self respect, which was challenged by this injury. I stayed doing this type of work for about a year, and it became quite evident that it wasn’t a good fit anymore. While I enjoyed the opportunity to be in that normal environment for myself, I was the reason you didn’t want to ride a motor cycle. It’s hard to market and sell something when you represent the purchaser’s worst fear. So, given these circumstances, I started to consider my other options. I had been involved in the mentoring program at Shepherd’s Center all throughout that year, and a position became available and I applied for it. It just fell into place. So, the heaven’s opened up and the opportunity dropped out for me. It was perfect.

Pete – How did you handle going back to work?
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