 Welcome to another edition of The Leader's Room. The Leader's Room is an initiative of the E. Cliff Leadership and Governance Center, and it is a venue for bringing leaders together to talk about their philosophies, their values and their purpose in life. Today, we have a very special guest, and that guest is Jennifer Bricker, an absolutely amazing young woman who has succeeded, despite some limitations, that you will learn about in a few minutes. While Jennifer has an extensive vocabulary, it does not include the word can't. Where others in her position might have given up, she has pushed forward to become a successful gymnast, acrobat and aerialist. She is an inspiration to anyone who faces personal challenges and a pure example of personal leadership energy. Jennifer, welcome to The Leader's Room. Thank you. Welcome to be here. Thank you. Jennifer. Tell us a little bit about your story. The camera is on you now, people are seeing all of you. Tell us a brief story. Well, I was born without legs, just like this, and put up for adoption. I was left in the hospital. My biological family was from Romania, and I lived in a foster home the first three months of my life. My parents, Gerald and Sharon Bricker, the ones that raised me, they adopted me when I was three months old. My mom had always wanted a baby girl. She prayed for a baby girl for ten years. She had three boys, and after the last boy, couldn't have kids anymore, so she wanted a baby girl. And one day she heard there was this baby girl that needed a home. And she knew I didn't have legs, but I think she just heard baby girl needs a home, and I want her. Didn't care. Didn't matter. I didn't have legs, and she talked it over with my brothers and my dad. My brothers were 10, 12 and 14 at the time, so it's fascinating to me that they were so excited about having a baby sister at that age, and everybody was on board, and the adoption went through a miracle record time very fast, and they raised me without the word can. I mean, the amazing thing about them is they didn't just take some stand like, we're going to be such awesome parents, look how awesome they just, it was just how it was. There was no other option of, why wouldn't we raise her the same as we raised our boys? Of course we're going to raise her that way, and we're not going to let anyone else treat her differently because she's not different. In fact, she's really capable and really strong and really athletic, and they just filled me with self-esteem, encouragement, confidence. I was beautiful. I was strong. I had a purpose. I had a reason, and God made me without legs, totally on purpose. This wasn't some tragedy or a mistake or some sadness. So there was no empathy. There was no sadness. There was only happiness and joy because I was their miracle. So you have to understand when you're raised hearing that you are the miracle, you are a blessing. The entire situation was a miracle, was a series of miracles that you believe that. It was the perfect environment, tiny town, so teachers, peers, coaches, no one treated me different because they grew up with me, and I loved gymnastics. I did all sports. I came out of the woman athlete. I did softball, basketball, volleyball, all against able-bodied athletes, not using my wheelchair, and my favorite sport was power tumbling. We were in such a small town, they didn't have full-blown gymnastics, which means gymnastics, there's four events for women, bars, beam, floor, and vault, but in power tumbling, it's just the tumbling part. And so that's what we had, and I watched gymnastics from six years old, from as young as I can remember, and Dominique Mociano was who I happen to be the most fixated on, and that whole year, the 96 Olympics was just an iconic year, it was in the U.S., we won gold, huge deal for everybody, and so I was fixated on her, and then I started competing in power tumbling, and I did really well. I was the first or only handicap person, if you will, to compete in power tumbling, and I went to Junior Olympics, I went to nationals, state meets, and actually won the state championship one year in my division and went to Junior Olympics in my division, and placed fourth place all around in my division, and at the time I didn't think it was a big deal, I was just simply doing what I loved. I didn't have to do it to prove anybody wrong, I didn't have to do it for someone, or because someone was making me, it's because I had the drive and the passion. And fast forward another, you know, eight or nine years, right before I turned 16, I found out that my biological sister was the girl that I idolized my entire life. So Dominic Mociano, who I grew up watching, don't we look alike, I would say, what if we were related just being a kid? We actually were related, full-blooded biological sisters. What was that like finding that out? Part of me knew without knowing, and the other part of me was completely 100% brick wall in the face. This is a movie, this doesn't happen, this is a one in a million. But then I, obviously on some level I was drawn to her, clearly, but it was, it's information overload. I mean, when you find something like that out, how do you, it takes a while to process. To process it through. It'll take a lifetime. It's never, I'm never going to wake up one day and be like, yeah, that makes sense. No, it's always going to be amazing. It's always going to be over the top. This is why I speak about my whole entire life, from the adoption to now, to, you know, and the irony in all of this too is that, you know, she was a gymnast and I grew, I was a tumbler and now for the past, how, eight years, I've been performing professionally as an acrobat and an aerialist and now a speaker the past several years as well. So very grateful to do what I love, to get paid to do what you love. That's pretty awesome too. But to travel the world, doing what I love, and really, it's just following my purpose and what I was made to do. But it's an honor to do that. Great. Well, let's break that down a little bit, because as we were talking before the interview began, I mentioned that at E-Cliff, we look at leadership energy as consisting of three things, values, purpose and mind or mindset. You've already indicated that one of the values that you hold pretty closely is not using the word can't or cannot. What are some of the other values that have guided you through your career so far? Well, so many. But my parents, you know, I was raised in an environment where I knew that, like I said before, I knew God made me this way for a reason. And so that's huge. Your identity being rooted in faith and being rooted in knowing that I didn't, you know, starting from the beginning, if I would have just thought that this was a mistake, it would have completely changed the entire my whole life, the way I think about my life, myself, what I'm doing, my whole identity. So having being rooted in faith and knowing that this was for a specific reason. I mean, I didn't have legs and yet I had all of these athletic abilities. The opposite of what you would think, right from the outside, you might think I'm confined to a wheelchair or maybe had a sad childhood or this or that. But my life was made to do all of these things. I was born without legs, yet given talents so that I could have an impact on the world. And it's not about me and my agenda. It's just that I'm being used so that other people can, their minds can be open, their boxes can be opened up, the worlds that they live in. They can realize that everything is possible. They can realize that they don't have to say can't or focus on the negatives because there's always going to be can'ts and negatives, right? But if you can focus on the things you can do or the positives and realize, you know, that you do matter, you are significant and your gifts and talents are equally as important as anyone else's that they have the power to change someone's life. And you can do that. You can change someone's life through your passion, through your gifts, through your talents that you were born with for you. And to me, that's just very special. So you said earlier that you knew early on that athletics would be a passion of yours. What would you define or how would you describe your purpose in life now? Is it to be an inspiration to other people? There's a lot wrapped up. I mean, I love performing as an aerialist, as an acrobat, and a speaker. So I think, and also I'm very into fitness and health and nutrition and fashion and cooking and eating healthy and clean. So I think I can use, I think all of those are vehicles. Like I said, anyone's passion can 100% be used as a vehicle to touch someone's life. 100%. And I think that's how that's how God's using me for other people because I'm so when I'm passionate about something, I'm passionate and I'm going to talk about it. So so it's it's just being in any of those fields. I mean, I've had a crazy weight loss journey and a fitness journey and kind of a cleansing of how I eat my weight, my fitness, my performance, my speech, every one of those has had an evolution of whole journey of gotta start somewhere. And then, you know, so I think it's being okay with the process, no matter what it is. It's not gonna, if you want it to last, it's not gonna be a magic pill and happen overnight. Being okay with the process. Would you say that your purpose has changed over time? No, it's just got different vehicles, different vehicles, different vehicles as I got as I've gotten older. Okay. I never thought I'd be a speaker until I was old and gray and retired. And here I am speaking. So you never know. But I'm open to that. I'm okay with things kind of changing. Well, you've mentioned that your parents, your adopted parents and your siblings were all very, very supportive of you. You said you grew up in a small town where it sounded like you got a lot of support there. But when you started to emerge into the broader world, you had to have run into some type of resistance. He had talked to us about the types of resistance from either people or circumstances that you've had to deal with and how you dealt with it. Actually, traveling has been one of the most interesting slash life lessons learned kind of thing where I've really had to swallow my pride and really had to learn that those are the teaching moments. For example, when I'm getting on a plane, okay, I'm gonna, you know, ride my chair up to the plane. I would just get out of the wheelchair, walk to my seat. That right there, that concept to most people, baffling, but you can't you can't do that. You can't walk. How would you do that? And it causes this huge commotion where everyone really just I mean, they freak out. And of course, this is not everyone, right? But this has happened a lot. And so instead of me wanting to be like, wow, and that's very condescending, you realize I'm an acrobat, right? That doesn't I don't have to say any of that. You know what I mean? Because if I reacted like that, that would be the that would be a moment lost. Those are teachable moments. But I'm not gonna lie. That was really hard, really hard. You're exhausted. You're jet lag. You just want to get home. And then you have someone in your face being really condescending. But they don't mean to be, you know, I realized they're just mean they're just trying to help. Okay, so that has been, you know, I've now been traveling for eight years, you know, pretty consistently. And that's been an evolution. That's that's been a journey of really like, Jen, you just have to talk to them and communicate, don't get irritated, just explain to them use it as a teaching moment. So that's been okay, that's been different. Anything other than travel? I mean, has that been the biggest? Well, because that's my life. Sure. So that is a very big hurdle because it happens all the time, multiple ones all the time and multiple situations where, you know, you really have to keep yourself together when you really don't want to. Or when I was younger, I was working at Disney World. And, you know, some people would come up to me and literally just say, wow, it's it's so good that you have a job. I was so stunned. I mean, this is when I first left home. I was 19. Right. So I had never I didn't know people would even I never thought of myself like that. I was never treated like that. I was known as strong, capable and an athlete, my whole life. So you can imagine then people are or, oh, you were born like that. Too bad. You know, so that's a tough break. Literally saying these things to me. And I'm like, I'm so baffled. I almost can't even respond. On one hand, you want to kind of yell at the person because you're like, are you seriously speaking to me this way? Again, on the other hand, it's not gonna it's going to set you back from what you really would want the person to take away from if you reacted that way. So just those instances happening all throughout, you know, the years that I moved away when I was 19. That's been very challenging because I don't want to react to somebody. I don't think it's right to yell at somebody. I don't think it's right to to have attitude. Okay. Because I don't think that's going to get anybody anywhere. Right. Right. So that has been one of the biggest all different situations. But in a nutshell, that that's it. Yes. Yes. So you obviously have a very positive mental attitude. You're a look forward type of individual. It sounds like you've coped well. But has there ever been a point in time where it was a dark moment for you where you where you did experience either some despair or has your faith always been so strong that it's consistently carried you through? I had a really dark time in LA when I was first there. I got really caught up in body image like being really skinny right I was on this whole fitness track and I never had a funny thing is I never had an issue about not having legs yet I completely derailed myself by by being so obsessed with being a stick figure. I just I got completely obsessed with it. I got a very dark, very low kind of place and my faith is what got me out of that. I mean, that's that was a, you know, looking in the mirror and not actually seeing what really is there, you know, seeing yourself as bigger than you are. And and it's it's an issue that so many women deal with. I just was so strong and I was never affected by peer pressure. I didn't think it could affect me. And it really I mean, for like a year and a half, two years and there are still remnants of I know I have things I have to set up I know I have to protect. Don't don't look in the mirror too long, don't judge yourself, don't pick yourself apart. And especially because I do speak to women sometimes I do speak to kids. It's very important to be authentic for me that if I'm going to speak about it that I'm going to be doing that in my life, I will be living that way. So that that that was probably one of as an adult, the darkest times was just getting through that whole because it's your own mind. So you have to get through it. And my faith is what got me through it. Okay. All right. So you're an inspiration. You've talked to you speak to women, you speak to children, you speak to all all audiences. And when you were younger, your natural sister was an inspiration for you. Is there anybody today, anybody else that you draw inspiration from? I would say as I get older, I probably draw my inspiration from my parents, because I really want to emulate how they raise me when I have kids. You know, I I they're such simple people. They're not city people. They're not business people. They're not traveled all over the world. But they get life in the most clear cut black and white. Of course, they just get it. I say they have a PhD in common sense, but they just do. And so that's why I thrived so much, you know, they allowed me to blossom. And so I'm constantly appreciating more and more and more as I get older, because you know, your mindset changes, and you think about getting married one day or having kids. And so I definitely draw inspiration from them all the time. So normally at this point in the interview for the last question, I'd be talking to somebody that has a lot more gray hair than you looks more like me. And I'd say so what do you want your legacy to be? Let me reformat though for you. You know, what does the future what do you see for the next 10 to 20 years for Jennifer Bricker? I would love to get married, have kids for sure, have a couple more books coming out. And I think eventually have a talk show. I think that's kind of where my my future is leading, or either that or some acting sitcom. So I think all of those and very involved in the fitness industry as well and some fitness magazines. And I think that's kind of some of the major goals that I want to hit. Okay, well, we at E-Cliff wish you much success in reaching all of those goals. Thanks for joining us in the leaders room. Thank you. Thank you. And this is Michael Kosser signing off from the E-Cliff Leadership and Governance Center's leaders room. We'll see you in the next edition.