David Smith MBE
David Smith is an elite athlete, coach, speaker, and cancer survivor whose extraordinary journey has inspired people worldwide. A multi-sport competitor for Great Britain in rowing...
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Who are you?
Hello, I'm David Smith and I was born in a small village in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pursued a dream of becoming a sportsman and living a life in nature and in the mountains, and ultimately a life of sport, which has been a huge passion of mine since I was a kid.
What is your background?
My background is ultimately in sport, but I would like to expand so much more than that. I think we're more than what we do. So I guess my background is, I'm 46 now, so as a lived human, a lived experience of 46 years on this planet, I've had hardship, I've had joyful moments, and that's come in the way of being a human being. I guess I'm no different to anyone else on this planet. I'm just trying to get by and understand the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that we experience on a daily level. But ultimately, they've predominantly come from a life in the world of high performance sport.
What sports have you played over the years?
I think I have a slightly different sport and journey where many people find themselves in one sport and they pursue that all the way to a professional level. I've participated in many sports. I think it's quite a, I would say I was never a master at any of them. I've just tried ultimately to find a master of craft and a master of self, and that's been a lifelong journey of mine. But the sports, it's an endless list. I think I just loved movement and what I really loved about sport was community and a sense of belonging, which led me into sports. Shinty, which is a Scottish sport, which is very much like hockey with no rules, is I think the best description for Shinty. I participated in karate, water skiing, snow skiing, a lot of different martial arts. I spent five years in the British Rowan team, seven years in the British cycling team. I did athletics. I coached with the British ski team. I also swam, and I was also a brakeman on the British bobsleigh team for a very short period of time. But I feel like I've had an experience of many different sports, which is a great way of experiencing the culture behind every different sport, every different sport's, a different culture. So I feel very fortunate to have experienced so many different sports at different levels from a very novice level to, I guess the world class level. But ultimately it, it's been about a search of who is David Smith, and also to find a level of belonging and a tribe actually that I could connect to. So it was never about trying to win medals. It was ultimately just, I guess to find out who I was.