People Tell Their Stories:
Disability

 

 

BILL PORTER: THERE ARE NO OBSTACLES   Shelly Brady

Excerpted from the book, Ten Things I Learned from Bill Porter (New World Library, Novato, CA)

 

Bill Porter first came to public attention when The Portland Oregonian wrote an article about him called “Life of a Salesman.” His inspirational life and message spread world-wide when 20/20 ran a segment on him and TNT aired a movie about his life, called Door to Door. But he had already been touching the lives of the people to whom he sold products and of his managers and co-workers at Watkins Products for years.

 

Bill Porter was born with cerebral palsy. Once told by the State of Oregon he was “unemployable,” he overcame the odds against him and got a job as a door to door salesman for Watkins Products. He went on to become the company’s  top salesman—one door at a time, succeeding by staying focused on what he was passionate about--sales.

 

Shelly Brady, the author of the book, Ten Things I Learned from Bill Porter, was a teenager when she first met and worked with Bill Porter. Later, after studying theater arts in college and marrying John Brady, she again worked part-time for Bill, delivering orders and helping him with household duties. Now, Shelly spends much of her time sharing Bill’s story with various organizations and corporations. The following is an excerpt from their story, a portrait of Bill Porter’s extraordinary optimism, persistence, wisdom and success—of all he has accomplished, despite what most of us would consider huge obstacles. Remarkably, Bill does not.

 

  

The first speaking engagement Bill and I contracted for was titled Overcoming Obstacles: The Bill Porter Story. I wanted to prepare fully for the occasion, so with notebook in hand, I asked Bill a few questions. “Bill, I want you to tell me all your obstacles.”

 

After a long silence, I looked up from my notebook to see Bill staring at me. I repeated the question.

 

 “Shelly,” Bill stated emphatically, “how many times do I have to tell you and everyone else? I don’t have any obstacles. Ask me another question.”

We played this cat-and-mouse game for fifteen minutes, with me cleverly rephrasing the question to trick the answer I wanted out of Bill: cerebral palsy, a lack of muscle coordination, an aching back, a speech impediment. I wasn’t having any luck; Bill wouldn’t play the game with me. He sincerely believes he doesn’t have any obstacles of any kind.

 

I knew audiences admired Bill because he overcame major obstacles in his life, and I wanted to satisfy them. They thought of him as a hero, an inspiration, a man who overcame tremendous odds. After learning from Bill’s example, my hope was that audience members with obstacles would be encouraged to overcome them.

However, Bill’s stubbornness forced me to change my approach to the speech. Instead of talking about how Bill overcame his obstacles, I was forced to speak about Bill’s “perceived” lack of obstacles. The word “obstacle” simply doesn’t exist in Bill’s vocabulary. He understands an obstacle to be something that totally blocks one from reaching a destination or goal, but the fact of the matter is, Bill never encounters “obstacles” because he always reaches his goal, whether it be a physical location or a sales quota. He is simply unstoppable.

 

When I was a child, my parents said I could be anything I wanted, the President of the United States or an Olympic swimmer. While I believed they were sincere, I never really took them too seriously; I felt the odds were extremely slim that either could actually happen. I appreciated their confidence in me, but I set my sights on what I considered more realistic, attainable goals such as a college education, a large, loving family, and a rewarding career. (In light of recent presidencies and elections, who really wants to be President of the United States, anyway?)

On the other hand, the opposite is true with Bill. He can quote verbatim what his mother said to him when he was eight years old: “Bill, you can accomplish anything you want, if you just set your mind to it.” Bill believed his mother whole-heartedly. I see this positive attitude in Bill’s approach to every stumbling block (not obstacle, mind you) he encounters. The following story is a typical example.

 

A few years ago, an especially cold and icy storm dropped out of Alaska onto the streets of Portland. Bill heard about the storm from the television weather forecasters. Being the complete optimist, however, he figured the forecasters were over estimating its strength. Bill puts a positive spin on weather forecasts in the summertime as well. When the forecasters predict highs in the nineties, he tells me, “I think cool.” The weather is very important to Bill because it determines what he wears and whether he should carry an overcoat or an umbrella. On this particular stormy day, Bill dressed appropriately and made his scheduled rounds. Every customer he encountered told him he should call it a day and head for home before the freezing rain started. Bill thought it was a perfect day for door-to-door sales because, as he says, “When the weather gets really nasty, more customers are home.”

 

Finally, after he exceeded his daily quota, he was ready to head home. Unfortunately, Bill didn’t outguess the weatherman this time; the buses had stopped running due to the storm and Bill had to hitchhike home. Not only was it bitterly cold and wet, the roads were dangerously slick. By the time he reached the steep driveway leading to his front door, it had frozen into a sheet of black ice as slippery as an ice skating rink. Bill tried again and again to get up his driveway, but he kept falling down. His shoes couldn’t get any traction. After several painful falls, he got down on all fours, crawled to his front door, turned the key, stepped inside, and at last proceeded to prepare his dinner while he watched the weather forecast for the next day.

 

The image of Bill crawling up his driveway on all fours is forever etched in my mind. When I scolded him for not calling for help, he said, “What’s the big deal? Nobody could have made it up that driveway without getting down on all fours.”

Another example of Bill’s refusal to submit to obstacles takes place every evening after he finishes dinner. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, Bill is wise enough to hire employees when the job at hand is too time-consuming or too difficult for his physical abilities. For instance, I deliver customer’s orders for him in my car because he doesn’t drive; a gardener keeps his yard neat because it takes him too much time and effort; a housekeeper keeps Bill’s home neat and well-stocked with his favorite foods (mostly frozen). I have been Bill’s housekeeper for fifteen years and now my children help perform the task.

 

However, even though Bill is familiar with the benefits of employing assistants, I can’t convince him to hire a secretary to type his orders. It just pains me to watch him peck away with one finger. Even a mediocre typist could prepare his orders in a matter of minutes. Bill spends hours pecking away, insists on doing all his own typing, and often types superfluous special delivery instructions with each order. Go down driveway. Open the gate. Leave the package by the back door. Close the gate behind you. I don’t need such detailed instructions and told him so, but he continues to add them anyway.

 

After the Oregonian article appeared, which included a vivid description of Bill’s poor typing skills, multiple offers came in for free typing services from professional typists. Bill wouldn’t accept any of them; he has to type all orders to ensure accuracy. And actually, Bill seems to enjoy himself as he finger-types each order. This is just another example of Bill turning an obstacle as painstaking and tedious as typing into a form of relaxation where he can reflect on his day and plan out the next.

 

The following incident temporarily had me believing that Bill’s optimistic approach to obstacles was coming to an end. Bill and I credit Tom Hallman’s article in the Oregonian, “Life of a Salesman,” with creating major positive changes

in his life. However, very few people know that when the article first appeared on Sunday, November 27, 1995, Bill was extremely upset by it. Personally, I was ecstatic that so many people were learning about my noble and brave friend Bill Porter. Sure, I was a little worried that the detailed description of Bill’s handicaps might initially hurt Bill’s feelings, but not to the extreme that it did.

 

When I called him the morning the article came out, he was fit to be tied. He believed he hadn’t been treated fairly. He felt the article portrayed him as a freak. The reporter’s use of the word “twisted” to describe his body was what irked Bill the most. Keep in mind that Bill Porter is, for good reason, a very proud man. He is a dignified and gracious human being who doesn’t see himself as suffering from the physical symptoms associated with cerebral palsy.

 

 I spent the next hour-and-a-half explaining to Bill that Tom Hallman’s article was very well written.

 

“Tom picked the word ‘twisted,’” I gently said, “because he needed to paint a picture with words and to aid readers of the article in understanding what cerebral palsy is and the physical limitations that often accompany the disease.”

 

Bill retorted, “My friends and customers don’t see me that way. They don’t think my body is twisted. Why did he have to pick that word?”

 

I had never seen Bill so upset in all the years I’d known him. My belief in Bill’s ability to overcome all obstacles appeared to fly out the window. I couldn’t calm him down. Furthermore, he was annoyed by the vivid description of his nightstand. Mr. Hallman described it as “littered with medications for a body that was in constant pain.”

“I am not in constant pain,” Bill exclaimed.

 

“But you are in constant pain,” I said. “Step away from yourself for a minute. You have migraines at least two days a week. Your arthritis flares up and your back aches on almost a daily basis. The rest of the world, including doctors, calls that constant pain.”

 

After a few days went by, Bill was still hurt and bitter about the Oregonian article. Tom Hallman was very concerned about Bill’s response; he expected the exact opposite reaction. He truly has the greatest respect and admiration for Bill, and he asked me if I could speak to Bill and straighten out the misunderstanding. He wanted Bill to realize that his intentions were honorable. He simply wanted the readers of the article to comprehend the full extent of Bill’s physical condition so they could more fully appreciate Bill’s greatness. The situation was a catch-22: Bill doesn’t think he has physical limitations or obstacles, and, being an excellent journalist, Mr. Hallman was obligated to portray the facts accurately, and the fact of the matter is...Bill Porter has cerebral palsy.

 

It wasn’t until Bill learned that more than seven hundred readers wrote, e-mailed, or phoned the Oregonian wanting to become his customers that Bill finally began to see things differently. “Tom really didn’t mean any harm,” he stated later. Bill was pleasantly overwhelmed with the arduous task of typing up all those new orders with one finger. He soon broke all existing sales records for Watkins products in the Pacific Northwest. “I guess my back does hurt once in a while,” he later admitted.

Most recently, serious health problems have forced Bill to curtail travel by airplane. It wasn’t easy for him to admit that there was an obstacle that could best him. Fortunately, my husband and I found innovative, high-tech solutions to the problem.

The discovery that flying wasn’t healthy for Bill couldn’t have come at a worse time in our busy speaking schedule. We were booked solid for engagements at Amway, Watkins, Disney, Nike, and other companies. We were definitely on a roll. Bill enjoyed the luxurious accommodations, and I thrived on the opportunity to travel and speak.

 

Then it happened — Bill couldn’t catch his breath during a flight to Atlanta as I slept soundly next to him. Bill thought that death wasn’t far away. Of course, he didn’t bother to nudge me and let me assist him. He made it through his state of panic with the aid of an inhaler, but the incident was incredibly frightening for Bill.

 

This shortness of breath wasn’t new to him; he often experienced it after walking a few blocks. But after resting momentarily and using an inhaler, he was always able to catch his breath and continue. Bill called them “breathing episodes” (in other words, “no big deal”). The doctors believed the shortness of breath was due to progressive, fibrotic lung disease. This ailment originated from an acid-reflux condition, whereby stomach acids cause scarring of the lung tissue. In layman’s terms, Bill’s lungs weren’t capable of processing the oxygen his body needed. The poor air quality on long airplane flights exacerbated the situation.

 

To compound the problem, Bill began to experience “panic attacks.” They occurred whenever he felt he was in a situation where he might lose his breath. These attacks caused Bill’s lungs to hyperventilate, thereby triggering a “breathing episode.” Bill went through a tug-of-war over whether to continue traveling or give in to his illness and stay near the safety of home. Despite being the brave man who he is, he took one more flight to the East Coast and then called it quits; no more air travel.

 

Personally, I was devastated by Bill’s refusal to travel by plane. I pictured my speaking career coming to an abrupt halt. I thought, Who wants Shelly without Bill? Prior to putting the suitcase in the attic, I did some brainstorming with my computer-literate husband. John saw no reason why we couldn’t use the latest advances in digital photography and the Internet to “virtually” present Bill on stage with me. Now, when Bill can’t be present, I keep a live telephone connection with him while I’m on stage. This way Bill and I can banter back and forth. Bill went along with the program because he knew how much I love public speaking and he loves the publicity, which translates into increased sales.

 

The presentations, with live audio and/or video feeds to Bill, have gone extremely well. The audience’s response to Bill’s “virtual” presence has been equal to the responses we received when he was on stage with me.

 

At the end of most presentations, I ask the audience what they feel is the greatest obstacle Bill overcame. The responses run the gamut: cerebral palsy, back surgery, declining health, death of his mother, inability to drive. The list goes on. I sometimes write these obstacles on a large chalkboard as they are spoken. Then turning to Bill on live video or by telephone, I go down the list: “Was cerebral palsy an obstacle? Was your mother’s death an obstacle?” With unwavering conviction, he dismisses each so-called “obstacle” one by one. “I don’t believe I have any obstacles at all,” he says time and again.

 

From the book, Ten Things I Learned from Bill Porter. Copyright © 2002 by Shelly Brady. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA.  Toll-free 800/972-6657 ext. 52 or www.newworldlibrary.com.

Shelly Brady was a teenager when she first met and worked with Bill Porter. Later, after studying theater arts in college and marrying John Brady, she again worked part-time for Bill, delivering orders and helping him with household duties. Now, Shelly spends much of her time sharing Bill’s story with various organizations and corporations. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and six children. Shelly has shared Bill’s story with companies including Nike, Disney, Franklin, and Covey worldwide. For more information about speaking engagements, contact her at PO Box 765, Gresham, OR 97030 or topofkee@aol.com or Nationwide Speakers Bureau, 310-273-8807, www.nationwidespeakers.com.

For more information about Bill Porter and Watkins Products, go to www.billporter.com.