"Marc was excellent - a real life role model."
Royal Mail
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BIOGRAPHY
Marc Woods was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 17 and had his left leg amputated below the knee. Not knowing whether he had 6 months or 60 years left to live, he was determined to make the most of whatever time he had.
Before losing his leg Marc swam in local races, but never achieved his potential. After surgery he stepped up his training, winning a race while still on chemotherapy. Six months later, he was swimming faster with one leg than he ever had with two. Eighteen months later, he represented Great Britain - and went on to win twelve Paralympic medals, four of them gold.
In presentations Marc takes audiences on a remarkable journey, inspiring each person to do the very best in every dimension of their lives. With thrilling footage, a terrific sense of humour and complete lack of sentimentality, he demonstrates his passion for life and shows what can happen when we learn to focus on those things which are under our control.
Marc was an integral part of the BBC Paralympic commentary team, and appeared on the broadcaster's main Paralympic advert with Tanni Grey-Thompson. He was an Ambassador for London 2012 and was a member of the British Paralympic Advisory Panel for both Olympic and Paralympic Games.
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TOPICS
Overcoming Adversity, Peak Performance, Transformational Leadership
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EXTRACT FROM JLA SPEAKERS BREAKFAST
In Atlanta I really thought we had a relay team that could win - then we came second. I was absolutely devastated. It wasn't until I watched the race again that I realised where we had gone wrong. I saw on the podium two happy guys and two sad guys. In that moment it dawned on me that as a team we had totally different objectives. We lost purely because we didn't all believe in what we were doing. Some were happy to come second - and there is a big difference between that and wanting to win.
I started to wonder whether the people in the support team that worked with us were as motivated as we were. Even the people who put the lane ropes in the pool -if they put them in 5 minutes late, I would miss 5 minutes of training. And I bet Australia don't miss out on 5 minutes of training every day.
We decided we would get everyone to focus on what they were doing - to understand that if they could do their job as well as they could, every day, we had a better chance of winning a gold medal. It doesn't matter what your job is - if we get everyone to move on a fraction, it would have an accumulative effect.
That was our focus - and because of that, our team went on to be seven seconds quicker in Athens - it was already a world record.