Famous personalities frequent school campuses lots of times. Students get a chance to encounter these people for who they really are through inspirational talks and graduation speeches. And it is here that students discover the diversity of talents, attitudes and skills that is utilized before one deserves to be called a “special guest.” Famous actors and actresses charm their audiences and excite with current updates about their love life or careers. Politicians attempt to inspire by using motherhood statements about serving the country and reaching for one’s dreams. Most of them start to lose their charm and magic when they begin to speak. A few, though, seem to magnetize the admiration and respect of the audience from the minute they enter the room up until the audience gives them their much-deserved standing ovation.
Such is the experience of meeting Jessica Cox. People who know her background may feel apprehensive about how to deal with her. But she saunters in confidently with a smile and initiates greetings and conversation. It seems she has mastered dealing with people who look at her with curiosity, or worse, with pity.
Jessica’s message is not unheard of. It is her story that is. She tells from her heart how she decided early on in her life that she would not let her condition block her dreams and aspirations. She trained herself to use her feet for the everyday tasks a person needs to accomplish. She admits with a smile that there is one thing she has not learned how to do with her feet, and that is tying her hair into a ponytail. Save for that, she can do everything else: eat, put on contact lens, text friends, write notes, play the piano, turn on appliances and open doors of opportunities.
She beams with pride as she tells her story about how she applied for her driving license. She said that she had felt the fear and worry of her examiner but she understood his situation and converted him into an admirer after the driving test. A lot of people know, of course, that she did not stop with cars. She became the first woman pilot in aviation history to fly using only her feet.
Aside from her black belt in taekwondo, she makes a living by sharing her life as a motivational speaker. She passed by our school and gave a free talk about creativity, persistence and fearlessness to my students, who are often regarded as “victims” of fate because of poverty. Jessica had a simple message to all of them: “Having limited opportunities in life should not stop you from fulfilling your dreams. Only you could make that possible.” I’m sure the students have heard this over and over again. But the message is refreshing for students, particularly coming from someone who has surmounted a lot of obstacles in her life.
She expressed her admiration for the students for their questions that dealt with feelings of isolation and rejection. She notes that she sometimes receives questions like, “How do you pick your nose?” from her audiences in the States. While sharing her personal stories of loneliness and feelings of failure, she was able to touch the lives of the students like no other speaker has, because the students recognized that this was a person who really knows what it feels to be little and insignificant and yet able to prove to the world that she has achieved more than people who were given much in life.
“Guess when I first started learning how to fly?” she asks her audience with a sly smile. As my students started shouting out double-digit numbers, she answers with all wisdom, “I started when I was six, when I started dreaming about flying in the sky and pretending I was Superwoman.”
Jessica’s story is about the triumph of the human spirit and imagination. Her greatness lies in being able to transcend limitations, things that, at first, seemed to destine her for a life of restrictions and lowered expectations. It is a constant reminder that people may not be able to do anything about what they were born into, but they can certainly do everything with what they were born with.