No Excuses!

Left alone, Kyle Maynard struggled to dress himself for the first time. On a normal day, his mother or siblings helped him pull on his shirt or zip up his pants, whatever it took to make the job go faster and not let Maynard feel like he was different.
Maynard was born with a congenital amputation that left his arms ending where his elbows would be and his legs stopping just above his knees.
It was this day, as Maynard sat in his room, his best friend and his friend’s mother waiting outside for him, that he was forced to dress himself while his own mother was attending an event for a sibling.
Using paperclips Maynard spent 30 minutes pulling his left sock on. He began to sweat. Then the right sock; even more sweat. His shirt. His pants. After a painstakingly long hour of using paperclips finally he had dressed himself; the only task not completed was the button on his pants. Maynard, drenched in sweat, realized the importance of learning to do things for himself.
He has since accomplished one of his biggest dreams. In 2009 he became the first quadruple amputee to fight in the Mixed Marshall Arts.
After about a year of negotiating fees with Maynard’s manager, Joey Leonardo, the date was set for him to come speak to the UVU student body on Thursday, March 24, 2011, according to Chairman Jeffrey Kahn of the Advisory Board for the Center of Advancement.
Over 100 students from UVU and Salt Lake flowed into the Grand Ballroom on campus to listen to Maynard as he relived many of his trials and accomplishments to prove to UVU that there are “no excuses” as his speech was titled.
“I saw the posters and thought it looked interesting,” said Tyler Mower, UVU senior. “It was a very good message and worth the time to come and hear it.”
Throughout his speech, Maynard stressed the importance of choosing for yourself, whether you are going to be a victim to your circumstance or not.
“We all have a disability or challenge to overcome. You can choose to allow these things to control your life or you can be in control and decide what you are going to do,” said Maynard.
Maynard grew up pressing through many trials. His father began training him to lift weights, starting with 2 ½ pounds and then entering him into wrestling matches.
Maynard hardly ever won. In fact, during his entire 6th grade year he lost every single match.
As a senior in high school, he soon was able to lift 240 pounds; and in 2009, he reached his highest weight with 420 pounds.
“I think it is always good to look in hindsight; like he said, ‘look back at the progress we have already made’,” said Becca Hutton, UVU sophomore.
Later when Maynard announced that he was going to step into a cage to fight, people wondered how a guy with no arms or legs was going to survive.
“A lot of people said terrible things,” Maynard said. “They said that I would be picked up and punted out of the cage. . . . I would be bloody and unconscious in 15 seconds. One person even said online, ‘Why don’t you get a chainsaw and come cut off my arms and legs so I can get some attention too?’”
Maynard had to learn to accept himself and ignore what other people thought of him. In doing so he developed the skills needed to become a New York Times best-selling author, a model, an entrepreneur, an athlete, a motivational speaker, and to train in power lifting and Ju Jitsu.
He has learned to write, type, lift weights, drive, and do what most everybody else can.
“Where we are right now things might be challenging. I guarantee there are excuses; but if you changed one of them, it would change everything,” said Maynard.
Life is about learning, he explained. It is about learning to grow, develop, and refine yourself.
Maynard has set a goal for September 2011, to get a team of people to climb with him 19,500 feet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
“Anytime you begin something it is going to be hard; but once you gain momentum over that adversity, then it’s easy and the excuses become less relevant,” said Maynard.