Shelley Taylor-Smith
Shelley Taylor-Smith is a familiar name to sports enthusiasts, in particular anyone interested in the world of swimming.
Shelley Taylor-Smith has overcome extreme hardships to reach the top of her field and now uses her life stories to inspire others in her public speaking career.
Shelley was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1961. At an early age, she developed an enthusiastic passion for swimming and would often fall asleep at night still wearing her bathers. At a time when Shelley suffered from crippling scoliosis and was described as having ‘no natural talent’ for swimming her biggest fan, her father, died from cancer. Before he died he told her: ‘No one knows you like you know yourself. You’ll wearthe green and gold and be a world champion one day’.
In 1990, Shelley won her first world marathon swimming championship title. Since then she has:
- set 15 world records;
- scored 51 first places in international marathon swims;
- received two world championship gold medals;
- been the first Western Australian to swim the English Channel solo;
- won the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim five times;
- and been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records twice – among many other achievements.
Behind the scenes of her success and fame, Shelley was faced with numerous struggles and hardships, including partial paralysis, several major and minor car accidents, a breast cancer scare, a collapsed marriage, a financially devastating situation that left her cleaning toilets to survive, and two torrid battles with chronic fatigue syndrome.
What helped Shelley through on every occasion was what she calls her Champion Mindset®.
Today, Shelley is a successful and inspiring motivational keynote speaker, international best-selling author, business trainer and success coach. A truly remarkable and lovely lady!
Being seven-time World Marathon Swimming Champion, what are some of the most important lessons you’ve learnt from your sport?
"Always stay true to yourself. Always! This has been my most important lesson and comes up every day in everything I do. You do that by going with your gut instinct and listening to your inner voice. I believe the ‘champion’ within you ‘knows’ you better than anyone else does. I’ve also learnt that the race is about bettering yourself. Never compare yourself with anyone else. Certainly look to them for inspiration, but your quest should be to better yourself and strive to unlock your full potential."
How can people develop the motivation necessary to achieve their goals?
"There are two keys to developing motivation and achieving your goals:
• Know what you want;
• Know why you want it.
Far too many people know what they don’t want and that takes them nowhere. In fact, you may even find that the things you don’t want, you keep attracting and creating. How many of us have committed to finding out what we want? I knew I wanted to get out of a wheel chair and win gold medals, I knew I wanted to survive chronic fatigue and live – just live.
I knew I wanted to live when doctors told me otherwise. Sometimes it takes ‘reality checks’ like that to find out what we really want, but you don’t always have to go through them to do so.
An easier way is to sit down with yourself, your family and loved ones and simply choose what you really want in life. If you are prepared to do whatever it takes, you will achieve it. You may experience ‘character building’ times but you have to maintain focus on your goal.
In my experience we always get what we focus on in the end, whether it is the negative or positive. So stay focused on what you truly want.
Knowing why you want it is what drives you when it’s too hard, too late, or too cold. It’s what keeps you going when everyone else quits."
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