23/05/2025
Matt Levy OAM FIEP is a Paralympian, author, charity ambassador, motivational speaker and disability employment advocate. As part of his role as an IEP Australia Fellow, he recently made a presentation to a Fellows’ Collective – an online gathering of compatriots from around Australia.
Here’s an edited transcript of his fantastic presentation, highlighting the importance of setting goals, having good people around you and maintaining a success mindset.
I was born at 25 weeks’ gestation back in 1987 with cerebral palsy and vision impairment. For me, life didn’t start easy, but I was able to make the most of the opportunities I was given. Everything in my life – from my disability to my swimming to my career outside the pool – has helped me develop a success mindset. In our own lives and when we are serving other people, we need to be looking at what we can do individually for the collective good.
From early in my life, my mindset was all about setting manageable goals and targets to get to where I wanted to go. After many long and hard operations as a child, it was as simple as getting out of bed and taking one or two steps. And it was really about making sure that my goals were manageable and easily identified, because we can have some big, lofty goals, and sometimes we don’t look at them from a manageable perspective. We just look at what some might describe as blue sky thinking.
And for me, it was no different going through life, whether it was trying to get my first job at Westpac or trying to walk those first few steps after a brain operation and trying to represent Australia, it was all about making sure I had manageable goals and targets to aim for.
I remember being a boy at the Sydney Paralympic Games, playing with my friends and not realising there was a going-home time, to get back on the bus and go back to school. At this time, we had no mobile phones, no Instagram, no Facebook. I had around 20 cents in my pocket, so I had to call my parents and let them know that I was safe, but I also had to work out how I could get home. That involved asking a lot of strangers and getting a lot of blank looks, but eventually I got home, walking through the door many hours later.
What this episode really taught me was a valuable lesson at a young age about setting goals and creating a mindset of success. It was really an “A-ha!” moment in my early life, understanding that sometimes success isn’t going to be easy. Sometimes it’s not going to come to you on a silver platter, but it’s really about making the most of your opportunities.
This perspective was reinforced by my performances at the Beijing Games in 2006. I thought I’d done everything possible. I thought I’d ticked every box. But I didn’t make a final, didn’t do a personal best, and didn’t achieve the goals I’d set. In response, I had to look at myself in the mirror and realise I needed to make sure that I made every post a winner. At the same time, I realised what it didn’t mean was trying 100 per cent, 100 per cent of the time. Instead, it was about making sure I used my time effectively, while also making my actions effective.
From that moment, I was able to look at what I was doing and make sure I was doing it with purpose. That led to some really good results for me in 2012, winning five medals at the London Paralympic Games. But it was not through just hard work and a clear purpose. It was through having a great team around me. It was those people who were able to make what I’m doing possible, lifting me higher than I thought I could go. It’s no different in the business world. Good mentors are crucial – people who help us make the most of what we do, that we can call on, that we can ask for feedback and bounce ideas off.
I’ve taken this mindset into my career, post swimming. I wouldn’t say I was lost after I finished my swimming career, but I think I really wanted to find a way of sharing my experiences, sharing what I’ve been able to do through my career for the greater good of the next generation. If we don’t share what we know and how we understand things, then who will?
My message is that it’s really important to stay focused. A lot of times we have many balls in the air, but it’s crucial to focus on what you can do in this moment, what you can do for the people that you’re serving – for yourself as an individual, from a wellbeing perspective, for your family, for the community.
I believe you need to be able to look yourself in the eye at the end of the day and say to yourself you’ve done a good job. We arrive in this world with nothing, but we leave with this wealth of experience to pass on to the next generation. And it’s really important that we look at it somewhat in that way.
