Find out more about our Can Too Strength and Cardio Virtual 10-week Program Team Captain and Can Too Community Spirit Awards winner Kieran Gallagher, with his letter to his younger self.
Dear KG,
Be brave, don’t be fearful of the water. Trust in yourself. Mum and dad didn’t mean to scare you, they just thought that you remembered how to swim when they put you in the pool as a 5-year-old.
The more you let that fear overwhelm you, the more unmanageable it is. Be persistent and you’ll learn that when adversity hits you to get back up straight away.
You will use this fear to help others transform their lives, show them that they can make the impossible possible because, you get what it’s like to be scared and overwhelmed.
Just keep swimming. It’s really good for you and your soul. Trust me - you will go from finding swimming arduous to it liberating yourself and others.
Be confident to swim in the deep water, you will never know how awesome life can be from sitting on the shoreline and making assumptions. You’ll become a leader with Can Too and love seeing remarkable people do something they couldn’t before. You’ll even become secretary of the Whale Beach Surf Club.
Teamwork makes the dream work. You will team up with ‘a goofy dude’, Mirek Craney, and witness how he fills people with joy. When you’re with him you will just laugh and laugh. You’ll complement each other in helping others learn to ocean swim and in doing this you will see them gain so much more.
He will give energy to people and you will gravitate to those who are more challenged. You’ll try to understand what their motivations are for wanting
to learn to ocean swim, such as the woman who was scared of fish, the person with stage 4 cancer and the doctor who had lost his confidence.
When the doctor feels frantic and anxious, you’ll tell him: ‘we can get through this together’. You’ll then see how euphoric he feels when he completes his goal to swim the Little Big Swim at Palm Beach.
Every year you’ll return because you’ll want to meet that one person where conquering an ocean swim changes their entire world forever, such as Grant Campbell who went from thinking ‘I can’t do it’ to swimming the English Channel in a team relay.
Remember to start with a smile and everything else will sort itself out and breathe deeply.
Have a good life you animal. Kieran
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