PENGUIN BLOOM: LESSONS FOR ADVERSITY

Keynote speaker Samantha Bloom – the inspiration for the movie Penguin Bloom – delivered so many messages of inspiration it’s hard to know where to start.

Living a dream existence, Sam’s life was turned upside down when she fell six metres onto concrete. Her devastating injuries included severe damage to her spinal cord, leaving her paralysed from the chest down.

Struggling with suicidal depression, Sam tapped into the spirit of an injured magpie, “Penguin”, to piece together a new life and become a world-class athlete, author and household name.

Encapsulated into a single sentence, her recovery almost sounds like a fairytale.

Far from it… and Sam tells her story raw.

Her style has been described as “unflinching”, and it is.

It is a powerful insight into the “how” and “why” of an individual, who was broken physically and mentally, triumphing against devastating odds.

Lessons

Delegates at the Women In Hotels Conference were taken into Sam’s “battle with the darkness”. She admitted that she found herself “filled with shame and anger”, “hated waking up” and “craved oblivion”.

Such ‘confessions’ make her messages all the more powerful. While self-help gurus tout similar lessons, they lack the lived misery that is at the core of Sam’s advice.

Lessons such as:

• While “some things suck”, don’t let misery block you from great happiness. You may be “shocked that so much can change for the better in a relatively short time”.

• Make your dreams happen today, not tomorrow.

• “Frequent lows and rare highs - gravel and diamonds - that’s what almost everyone’s life journey looks like, and mine is no exception.”

• While we are stronger than we think we are, we can’t do it alone. Ask for help instead of giving up or surrendering to self pity.

• “Don’t fixate on what you can’t do, or don’t have.”

• Nothing feels as good as helping others. Sam shared her story because, as she puts it, “anything is possible if you are creative and determined enough to make it happen.”

A compelling part of the day was a discussion about the difficulties of access in the hotel sector, which was brought to life by this video.

Future issues of Hotel SA will feature advice on how to improve access at your property.

A week following Sam’s presentation, she travelled to the USA to compete at the US Para Surf Championships and became a three times World Champion in the unassisted category.

You can find more information about Sam here.