An Interview with Chad and Kelly Hymas

This is A Personal Touch, a chance to check in with ordinary people making an extraordinary difference in the world. I’m Rebecca Cressman and today joining us are Kelly Hymas and Chad Hymas. A father/son tour de force, I guess I should say, who have learned together the power of the human spirit. It is such a pleasure to have both of you here with me today. Thank you so much.

Thank you, it’s good to be here.

Thank you.

Now, Chad, if you would be so kind as to introduce us a little bit to your story. Because you are one of the most in demand speakers in the country, especially when people hear about your story of how you turned a challenge into a personal triumph.

Q: So can you bring us back in time to the year of 2001?

A: Sure, I… it’s really rather simple. 2001 my Dad and I were working together on building a dream, an elk ranch. And while I was working on the farm one night I was injured and was struck by a one ton bale of hay and was pronounced a quadriplegic just a few days after that surgery and became paralyzed for life. And my Dad took over the dream and has been doing it ever since. The ironic thing is today I travel and speak. But that career started way before I ever got hurt, because my dad had been trying to get me to come over to his home to watch a video tape of another quadriplegic who he saw speak at a corporate event that my dad just absolutely loved. The speaker’s name was Art Berg and so my dad had been trying to get me to come over to his home, but I never had time to do it. I never did make the time to go see what my dad had to show me until after I then became paralyzed. So, it’s all kind of ironic how that happened Rebecca.

Q: It is. Now Kelly, do you remember thinking about that the very first time you saw- what was it about Art’s presentation that made you want to share that with Chad?

A: Well, I wanted to share it with my whole family, not just Chad. It was so powerful the message that he brought. It was just you were crying one moment, and then you were laughing the next moment it was just a super, super speech and I was just overwhelmed with the whole thing. I just wanted my whole family to see it for some reason, I don’t know why. And then after Chad got hurt I really struggled with: should I let him see it right now or not, because he was kind of down in the dumps and I just didn’t know whether to let him see this or not. But we decided to let him watch it and it went well from there.

Q: When you look back at time and you see—I mean Chad talks about the irony. Kelly do you see that that was an act of Providence maybe to help you see that even though Chad’s physical body would change, that there would still be so much influence he could have?

A: Absolutely. I feel that things happen for a purpose and I think I was being prepared from two or three months before the accident. I think I was being prepared and I just feel like it was something that was supposed to be, I guess.

Q: And Chad, you remember those first months as you received the news and what was it like for you to see somebody else with so much energy and so much positive emotion? Did that really help give you hope?

A: Interesting how you look at it. You say, “Received the news”. I didn’t like that but Dad kept on talking to me about this and he said, “You know that even though you lost some things, there’s still much more that you can still do.” And I just- I didn’t see any potential or didn’t see any vision and I was upset. I wasn’t a happy person and it did not happen overnight, but through the steps that every person that goes through anyhow. I might be paralyzed, but there are lots of other people that are listening to this or seeing it on the website that are going through their own personal challenges. It does take time and I feel that Dad has helped me through that. My wife has helped me through that, my mother and the family. As all that’s taken place it’s been amazing how much more happy I am today than I was per se, when I first got the news that was bad.

Q: Well, and again, how do you not understate those powerful words when you re-evaluate your life? You had gone from working on that dream ranch with your father, and then the tractor accident, and then the acceptance of life different for you. But as you speak over the number of years, there seems to be such a ground swelling of response to your message which is to be—all of us, and you mention that all of us have different challenges—but that the ability for us to kind of adapt, and to develop new skills in different situations. Is that just something that you have personally begun to ponder over the years, or how has that message become so important to you?

A: I can’t believe how it all works out. I never dreamed or thought that I would speak in front of other people and have an opportunity to share a message or story. It was never part of my thought process. So when Dad says that things are meant to be for a reason, that phrase in and of itself to me had very, very special meaning. If I did not believe that Rebecca, I would struggle even in my current state today, so I think that that in and of itself is what drives me to do what I do. Things happen for a reason. There are some things that I miss about my body. The way I used to do things, but as I reflect on this purpose and how things have happened, it becomes more and more clear to me: Dad saw Art speak, Dad came and talked to me in the hospital, I didn’t have time for Dad, and today Dad runs the dream and the dream never did die. It’s fun to watch how that dream never did go away. Dad has taken that and built it even bigger than I ever, ever thought it would get and I’m still a part of that. It’s still in the family, and I still get to enjoy that. It’s ironic how things still happen and turn out even though they don’t happen the way that you plan them to be.

Q: Now Kelly, Chad is talking a little bit about the dream in terms of giving us an idea. Am I right 5,100 acres?

A: Yes.

Q: That’s a big dream.

A: Yes. It’s all work, not play.

Q: Okay…

A: It’s a lot of work, a lot of work.

Q: And so what is the driving force for you? What was the dream, and what is the dream?

A: Well… I guess the dream was more Chad’s dream than mine. Chad wanted to raise elk and be an elk rancher and came and asked my opinion and I said, “You know I’d like to help you, but I don’t want to do all the work.” And then we went to a meeting down in Nevada. And I came out of that and I told Chad, I said, “The only way we’re going to make a living or make any money at this is to do a hunting ranch.” And he said, “Well, then let’s do a hunting ranch.” And I said, “Well, that sounds good, but I don’t want to do all the work. I’ll just help you.” And then we started and got the property acquired, and got started on the fencing project. And within a month of that project Chad was hurt and we were faced with a dilemma, whether to go forward or to take our losses and pull out. Chad said, “I still want to do this,” when he was lying in the bed at the hospital. And I looked at him and I said, “Well that sounds good, but who’s going to do all the work?” So I had to continue my regular job plus do this, and it just worked out well and has really been far better than we ever anticipated. So it’s been a lot of fun.

Q: And the elk ranch is where?

A: It’s located about an hour and a half southeast of Salt Lake, down by Price, Utah.

Q: And if I could skip a generation, and I’m obviously fast-forwarding through many, many events. And Chad, with all due respect, after the accident and you became a quadriplegic, in order to regain a lot of your basic skills- we’re talking about months and years for you to re-develop a lot of the things that many of us take for granted. So you, as your father were working on that elk ranch and continuing and plowing and getting things ready, you had your own acres to…

A: No question. You’re right, and I know right where you’re going with that. And I’m still going through that. I don’t know that that will ever end, but I’m learning things every day. And things happen almost on a daily, if not every other day basis where I’ll have a mistake, or the body will do something that I’m not expecting it to do and I need to have help from somebody else and then I learn from that. Or I think about what I can eat and what I can’t eat and I… it’s so incremental how things happened. I don’t know, it’s just been a growing a process and it will probably be that way for the rest of my life.

Q: And now you are a father, I mentioned skipping a generation. We have your father Kelly and then we have you, Chad, and you are the father of three children. And I’m assuming your experiences over the last seven years, or even longer if we go back to your early childhood, that that has changed the way you parent now, the way you father your children about the incremental changes that will happen in their lives.

A: I definitely teach them differently than I would have prior to the injury. And it’s interesting to see how the kids, the two boys and then obviously the little girl that we got from Guatemala, how they have never had a problem with their father being in a wheelchair. Even Christian who was three at the time has never looked back once and said, “Dad, I wish you could do this.” It’s always been, “Dad we are doing this and you’re going with us.” They never say, “We wish you’d play ball.” “Dad, we are playing ball, and you’re going to come out and play with us.” It’s interesting to see how little kids have that kind of a perspective, and it’s helped me to try and become a better parent, a better teacher for them. And then of course Dad, he steps in and worms their hook and does things. He’s always there to- he just went camping. I couldn’t go camping with Christian. I don’t do very well in the cold, Rebecca, so Dad took Christian on his Boy Scout camp, and I just… incredible, absolutely unreal, how these kids are being raised and taught.

Q: Well, and I if could for just a moment, I had mentioned in the beginning as we were talking, that you are a professional speaker, Chad. And that your stories and the story of you and your father as well as your own journey is something that people really draw strength from and inspiration from. But one article I read Chad, you said, “Don’t call me a motivational speaker; don’t dare call me a motivational speaker.” You say, “You all have to choose to change after we are all done.” What do you mean by that?

A: Well very, very simple. As my Dad mentioned, he came to the hospital and he brought some tapes to me to watch, and they were very, very positive in the hospital, upbeat. But then when everybody left, I was alone and I had to make that choice. And so I’ll take the credit for that, and I don’t mean that in a boastful way. And when everybody is gone the individual people have to make the decision to choose what they’ve just heard to either accept it or to not, and then they live with the repercussions of those. Just like we were taught as a kid you live with the consequence of your choices. So when we left the hospital I chose that. No different than when I speak to a group of people. I don’t- I’m only with them for sixty minutes Rebecca. They walk out those doors, they will choose to make the phone call to their child or not. That’s their choice. No different than the choice that I made in the hospital room with all the good people around me. Everybody goes home at the end of the day and we’re left in the car to listen to the radio and the music, and we make the choice there. And so that’s why I don’t like to be called a “motivational speaker” because I think that motivation comes when people act on their thoughts or their intentions.

Q: Well, and Kelly – and to both of you, Kelly and Chad, as we close I do want to wish you a Happy Father’s Day. But, I wonder, Kelly, if I could just for moment ask you another question. As a father you see your child take many different steps to become a man. And you had to in some sense watch your son re-learn to regain some of those basic skills again, about taking care of himself, and brushing his teeth and learning how to move his body because of this. How has that changed you as you look at your son in terms of how you define Chad as a grown man now?

A: Well I… I used to think about that when the accident first happened, and I went through some wondering too about: what was going to happen, how was he going to take care of himself, who’s going to be there for him? And then I thought Chad’s always been a go-getter. I have never questioned that. He just needs to get started in the right direction and he’ll do the work. I’ve never concerned myself about that and worried about that, because I knew he would get it taken care of. But he’s far exceeded what I was expecting and it amazes me on what he’s accomplished and what he does and what he continues to do, so I’m very proud of that.

Q: Well, and it sounds like the feeling is very mutual of what you both are accomplishing, and Happy Father’s Day. Thank you so very much for what you have shared with us today and we appreciate that so much. We’ll have more information about Chad and your website where people can learn a little bit more about you and find where you are, in which communities, so they can have an opportunity to meet you in person and to possibly receive enough self motivation to meet the challenges in our own lives. Thank you again, Chad and Kelly, for joining me today on A Personal Touch.

A: Thanks Rebecca.

And also we want to thank you for joining us today on a Personal Touch, and invite you to join us next Saturday to find out who else like Kelly and Chad Hymas are making a difference in our world with a “personal touch”.

Until Next Month.... Believe You Can Fly!