"You will never walk again."

"You will never walk again."

Maybe I shouldn't start there. In a few minutes I'll get back to that.

First, let me introduce myself.

My name is John Tartaglio

and today I'm here to share my idea.

In the business world,

when a company is trying to drive performance,

when they're trying to drive change,

they use something called the congruence model.

This model, the basis of it, what it says is that

when a company is coming up with its goal

or its objectives, it follows its mission.

In order to meet these goals and objectives,

they align each aspect of the company in each department

in order to reinforce and support those goals.

So in the same way I believe that, when we set our goals,

we need to pursue what we value - that is what means most to us.

In order to meet them, we need to align each aspect of our lives

to support and reinforce these goals.

To help elaborate I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story.

My life began just like most people's do.

I was born perfectly healthy.

I played sports, I hung out with family, friends.

Any other normal guy.

I'll take you into my junior year of high-school,

going into my senior year.

Beginning of that summer I became sick and I was diagnosed with mononucleosis.

So I thought nothing more than,

"Man, this is going to kill me, not to be able to hang out with my friends

and work out and just do those everyday things."

If we fast forward a little bit towards the end of the summer.

I wake up on August 22nd, 2004 and something's different.

I had this unbearable pain in my legs.

So I told my parents

and from there we went to the doctor's office, to the hospital

and we could have never been prepared for what happened that day.

In one day I went from your average normal teen to handicap.

I woke up completely shocked, devastated, angry, upset.

I had lost both of my legs and left bicep.

I had no clue how the rest of my life was going to be.

I had no clue what a normal life was like for somebody like me.

Soon after, I was able to speak to doctors in a leading prosthetic company.

They told me, "John, you contracted an extremely rare bacterial infection.

You're 1 of 35 people in medical history to have ever had this.

And another thing.

John, due to the level and severity of your amputation,

you will never walk again."

This is something I didn't want to hear, something my family didn't want to hear

and something we thought we had more control over.

So, from the very beginning I set a goal: I wanted to walk and receive my diploma

and graduate on time with my class.

Why do this?

At the peak of most people's lives, when you're the most self conscious,

I had set this goal because the meaning that it had for me was really

about bringing a sense of normality.

To be able to walk with my class and to graduate on time.

Small thing.

So...

My family, my friends, my school, everybody was aligned

and it reinforced and it supported my goal.

My parents found the most amazing prosthetist.

I was working with the most amazing physical therapist.

My friends, they treated me no different than I was before.

In my school, they allowed me to have home schooling when I wasn't there

and a flexible schedule when I came back

in order to work with my therapist to achieve this goal.

After months and months of hard work, of challenging myself, of pushing myself,

of being challenged and pushed by others, I was able to meet this goal,

graduate on time and walk and receive my diploma with my class.

I went on to further my education.

I went to Fairfield University and during my time there

I competed in various events. I did endurance events.

After all, they were right saying I would never walk again.

And I was running.

I ran 5Ks, 10Ks, I competed in triathlons,

long distance endurance events such as Half Ironman.

But there was one goal after graduating from college

that I didn't even think it would be possible.

From the beginning of my experience and even throughout most of college,

my goal was, I wanted to run and complete a marathon.

It was the perfect time in my life.

I had family and friends to support me, help me train in order to meet that goal.

I had a schedule that would allow me to put in the hours that I needed

out on the road because it's much more than your average runner.

And I'd just met the most beautiful, most amazing woman who is now my wife.

And we have the most beautiful and amazing little girl, Lilian-Eleanor.

And finally, I had a goal that I valued.

To me, running this marathon meant that I'd overcome my disability.

So not to meet this goal would be so much harder

than the work that it would take to make it happen.

So, fast forward to the morning of the New York City Marathon.

I spent months training and I was ready for this event.

I had my support team with me there the whole day.

They were there to cheer me on.

They were there to hydrate me, they were there to feed me,

and cheer me on some more.

I remember that half way through this race I had an amazing interview with NBC

and during that same time there was a mass of runners

that passed by me.

They were cheering my name and saying encouraging words

and I was on quite the adrenaline rush.

I remember looking at my team. I looked to the left and right and I said,

"You know what the best part about this race is?

Is that I know I'm going to finish."

And I did.

On that day, it took me 15 hours and 59 minutes

but I became the first and only person in history

to run and complete a marathon with no legs.

So, to take a step back.

I want you to imagine living a more confident life.

I want you to imagine living a happier, more fulfilling life.

I want you to imagine living a life where you set a goal

and you achieve results beyond your wildest expectations.

Because the whole point is,

when you set goals based on what you value,

that is what means most to you,

and you align each aspect of your life to reinforce and support those goals,

you no longer have to imagine.

And that, my friends, is an idea worth spreading.

Thank you.

(Applause)