Golden Threads
When Friendship Changes Everything | Golden Threads
Ian Harvey
Ian Harvey learned that the people he thought he was helping were teaching him what hard really means.
Kintsugi Studio
Golden Threads
Ian Harvey
Ian Harvey learned that the people he thought he was helping were teaching him what hard really means.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Ian Harvey spent 20 years running gyms before a single phone call changed everything. On Boxing Day, a young man he coached, Jason, broke his neck diving into a sandbank at the beach. Jason was 17, weeks away from his 18th birthday, and everything Ian thought he knew about difficulty shifted in that moment. Years later, another close friend, Doug, became quadriplegic after a car accident in Canada. Both men were spinal injuries. Both became Ian's teachers.
What Jason and Doug showed him had nothing to do with pity or inspiration-as-spectacle. Jason told a mental health nurse in the hospital that he was fine because his friends were there, and nothing would change that. Doug refused false comfort and told Ian to be honest about how he actually felt instead of pretending everything was okay. They taught him that friendship means showing up without knowing what to say, that treating people as you want to be treated removes the fear that stops most of us from engaging, and that people with disability often give far more than they ask for in return.
Those lessons stuck. After COVID made gym work feel hollow, a former employee introduced Ian to WhatAbility, a company built on the idea that fun matters in disability support. He went from managing gyms to managing experiences. Now, as National Foundation Manager for the WhatAbility Foundation, he gives away tickets to movies, zoos, sporting events, Formula One races, and jet ski days to families who couldn't otherwise afford them. His goal is to build marquee events so big and so good that people without disability feel like they're missing out if they don't include someone. Everything Ian does now comes from what Jason and Doug taught him about what hard really means.
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