Meet Emma
World and European Para Dressage Champion
Emma Sheardown was born with a disability, Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy and at 14 months old doctors predicted that she would never walk or talk. By the age of 6 with the help of physiotherapy and the support of her family Emma defied medics predictions and began to walk unaided and she hasn’t looked back since.
During her teens, Emma went onto become a GB athlete competing in the paralympic equestrian sport of Para Dressage, eventually becoming World and European champion - she has a total of 3 gold medals, 3 silver medals and a bronze medal to her name.
It was in 2017 that sadly her sporting career came to an end and she was forced to build a new career. As Emma struggled to grieve for the career she had lost, she started to think about her future. Having experienced delivering motivational talks before Emma hit upon the idea of marketing herself as a motivational speaker, using her experiences of growing up with a disability, overcoming challenges, the mindset of being an elite athlete as well as her mental health challenges to motivate, educate and help others.
Since then Emma has worked hard to develop her business and she has a brand to be proud of
Emma’s own motto for life 'There's No Such Word As Can't' has become the familiar tag line for her business and her popular talk of the same name has since steered the development of other talks, plus 'There's No Such Word As Can't' - the book was released in December 2021.
Today, Emma provides two areas of business. As well as as offering motivational talks for business gatherings, corporate conferences and groups of all sizes she also offers training to businesses and other public serving organisations on disability awareness, inclusion and accessibility.
Within the motivational talks that Emma offers, she speaks about a range of subjects including overcoming adversity, 'turning no into go' and of course 'there's no such word as can't'. Emma aims to provide her audiences with increased self- believe, the motivation to achieve and the feeling that no matter how tough life gets, you can turn things around and start living and achieving again.
In 2019 Emma was honoured to speak at her first TEDx event - a talk which is now widely viewed on YouTube.
Emma’s disability awareness work also stems from her experiences of growing up with a physical disability. Whilst we are now in the 21st century Emma believes that sadly we still have a long way to go with regards to disability equality.
Although Emma is not naive to the dreadful hate crimes happening towards people with disabilities, she also looks at it from the point of view of the people who simply don't know what to say if they come across a person with a disability.
Right now Emma’s passion is to educate businesses and public-serving organisations about disability as this seems like a good place to start. Emma has had personal experiences of being on the phone to well-known 'high street' companies and having the phone put down on her because the staff-member is unable to understand what she is saying.
Instances like this really knock her confidence, but it makes her determined to help those customer-facing staff members build their confidence and skills in order to gain good relationships with a diverse clientele.
A phrase that Emma often uses in all areas of her disability awareness work is 'just because my legs don't work, it doesn't mean that my brain doesn't work either'. This phrase couldn't be more true - it's always worth remembering that even the most severely disabled person, sat in a wheelchair may even be cleverer than you!
Emma’s goal going forward is to continue her work in both areas - both instilling confidence and motivation in those who are struggling, whilst also continuing to fight for a more inclusive, accepting and accessible society for people with disabilities.
#TheresNoSuchWordAsCant
