Yes there are aspects of life and careers that require absolute knowledge. For example, a neuro surgeon would rarely be required to have a good bedside manner with their patient on the operating table. I for one however, will never be a surgeon, nor do I wish to be. It would involve to much responsibility for one such as myself who couldn’t handle the pressure.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m alone with this stance. Ironically it appears to me upon reflection that most of the so called prestigious and powerful roles require more EQ than IQ.

Being no stranger to IQ tests, I know what they consist of. But I’ve come to the conclusion that my EQ is far more valuable than any mathematical garbled crap that I can solve on a spreadsheet. The reality of life is that people must relate to others.

For a disabled person to do so, they may have to open themselves up more than most. Having done so, I have found it has yielded much more than I ever gave. I have befriended countless people from all echelons of life and the common aspect of these friendships is that we are both open with each other. Looking back, it sounds stupid now but I used to be embarrassed about eating in restaurants because I was afraid of making a mess. But I was too proud to ask for my friends to help. Interestingly enough, even my closest friends wouldn’t offer to help for fear of insulting me.

As one gets older and wiser, I have tended to realise that honesty and openness are far greater tools than spreadsheets and pie charts. Being friendly, direct and truthful are the cornerstones of any successful life and career. Pussy footing around situations where both parties are unclear on what they should do, in any aspect of life will cause awkwardness and tension. My approach of being open and direct is not restricted to those I already have a connection with. Instead I use it uniformly and this had meant I have connected with many interesting and unique people.

This does not mean you will always stand eye to eye with someone but you will know where you both stand (pardon the pun). I can only offer my advice based on experience and suggest what’s worked for me. So let me leave you with this. Do you remember the teacher who helped you through your GCSE maths due to their brilliance, or do you remember the good friend who helped you through a trying time in your teenage years? Both are valuable, undoubtedly but I know which one has imprinted them self on me much more.

Who has had a greater influence on you?

Whether you speak of fear as a personal concept or problem, it is interesting to me that people, who are often considered the strongest in society, are simultaneously engulfed in fear itself. So this begs a question, is fear a good thing or a bad thing?

My personal feeling is that fear is a very good thing. By this I mean that everything I have achieved in my life has been derived from a fear of being left behind. Of course, I have had my family and friends to support me, but my successes or failures have been brought about by my own internal fear of not being a worthy part of society. Most of all, of not able to say I’ve achieved what I want in life.

I am disabled, I cannot avoid that and nor am I ashamed of this. But being disabled derives my greatest fear. While most people are afraid of losing their job, getting sick or having relationship problems, my fear, is much simpler than that. My greatest fear occurs on a daily basis; each and every morning when I wake up, there is always one moment when I think to myself, is my helper going to be there for me? Whether this is my parents, or Andrew my carer, if they are not there, for whatever reason, I am then completely helpless.

Now an IQ of 230 odd, may get you so far, but it won’t get you out of bed!

But is this a bad thing? I ask myself this all the time. I’ve come to the conclusion that it may be the driving force behind everything that I do. I go to bed with this fear; I wake up with this fear. It’s like a marriage that can never end. But the reality is, if I’m honest with myself, this is the one overriding thing that sets context to the rest of my day and empowers me to be fearless in nearly all aspects of my life and career. You see, once you can learn to live with such a burden, everything else pales into insignificance. Work problems become less, friendships become stronger and conflict between people becomes pointless.

So, whilst governments and political parties and factions within society use fear for deriving the worst out of people, I have actually found fear to be a powerful tool for good. Now I may never run a successful business or climb Mount Everest, but I know that I will not be afraid to try.

Has fear helped or hindered you? What are you afraid of?

Success.  A word that can mean so much, it can instil power within people, instil security, financial or otherwise and it can also ironically be quite the opposite. Being a disabled man and having been born disabled, I don’t think I have the linear view of success that most people do. Having a sports car or a private jet does not embody success to me. But, my brother has recently had a baby boy who is now 9 months old. For me, there could be no more successful man or woman (sorry for the lack of mention Emma) than these two. However, success like many intangible things is often more visible to those external to it, than to those who have actually achieved it.

To use my own life as an example of this, I have worked as a trader at one of the biggest and if I may say so myself, the best investment banks in the world. I managed risk on a daily basis and worked within several teams. For many this would be successful in its very nature, whether able bodied or disabled. For me however, it was a function of where I wanted to get to and was not the climax of a successful endeavour.

People have written endless books and articles about career defining moments, whether they be of a sporting nature like David Beckham’s goal against Greece or a business venture such as Bill Gates setting up Microsoft. I find it curious that these events often occur when people are between the ages of 30 and 40. So if this is a person defining age, what is next for me? The answer, to be honest, is that I don’t know. Having left the city, I do hope to set up my own company. Whether I can achieve this, only time will tell. Moving forward with Priority is also vital work that I need to continue to do. And this work is somewhat reliant on my success. So we enter what could be either a vicious or virtuous circle.

So what is success and why do we strive for it? Is it for others, is it for yourself? Or is it for the family of emotions that go with the accomplishment of achieving something? On this matter, I can only speak for myself. For me the act of doing and giving is more verifying than the act of receiving and I have become very aware that one must be careful of what one wishes for. So in my next ten years on this planet, I will set my goals as high as they’ve ever been, aiming to achieve what may seem impossible to many. I ask you the reader to contemplate what would make you happy?

So as a parting shot, I think the reader should bare these thoughts in mind:

That one should be proud of what one has done and one should never stop believing that a person can do more.

To be blunt, none of these would have been possible without my powered wheelchair and the freedom it provided. Receiving my first power chair was life changing. Moving unaided was mind-boggling. Finally I felt I could join in and feel more ‘normal’ than ever before. Looking back over this fondly nostalgic period, I think that the gift of liberty, the chair provided was fundamental to my future successes.

I arrived in London in July 2000, after graduating from the University of Manchester. Prior to this I had never lived outside of my parental home. So moving was a very big deal, but that’s for another time I guess. Whether I was lucky or stupid to move, I managed to settle here. I joined a major investment bank as a Proprietary trader and have been in trading in some form or another for about nine years.

A couple of years ago, a group of disabled young adults visited the office to spend the day with us. My interactions with the group throughout the day changed my life and outlook forever.

Growing up, I had very little involvement with disability. This sounds funny I know, from someone who went to a ‘special school’ until the age of ten. But all my friends were able bodied and as I moved to high school, college and such, I rarely met anyone with a disability. However that day at the office taught me of my own responsibilities to others. As I spoke about my day to day work, I could see a change on those teenagers faces. There was a realisation that they could do anything and more importantly, that their life’s ambitions should only be bound by imagination.

I looked around to see how I could best help. I became an Ambassador for Whizz-Kidz who do a fantastic job of providing equipment and with whom Priority works closely. However for me this was not really adding as much as I would have liked. In 2006 I ran into Mark Borland whilst walking to work and we started chatting. We came up with the idea of using my life and career experience to show others what can be achieved and to open the issue of disability to a new audience. So we set about bringing together a unique group of professionals to be trustees and initiated the Priority Trust.

Our original idea was to bring more funding to other charities and help relieve their waiting lists, something which we are very proud to continue to do.

As Priority evolved, we wanted to demonstrate more examples of achievement within the disabled community. We want to provide encouragement to those with little and share knowledge and information. Ultimately we want to breakdown the taboos and ignorance that continues to surround the topic of disability.

This is why I created Priority and the blog. I’m delighted to welcome the other Bloggers to Priority and am certain that their involvement can make a real difference to how disability is viewed.

Going forward my personal blog will focus on the perception of disability and how it is viewed by others. Comments will always be very welcome.