an honor it is to be here today to do
this talk okay so yes I can and this is
my story about yes how I can get the
world fit now through social media so
let me start at the beginning where it
all began and I’ll just say here so I’m
no Einstein but I do have a platform and
I have a passion and I have a mission so
for me as a young child school was not
particularly great time I was very
bullied and I think a lot of people just
assume because I do fitness I was a
really sporty kid at school but far from
it I was one that had every excuse to
get out of games and I don’t know if any
of you ever experienced this where in
sports they used to do it where they
used to pick a member for the team and I
was always the last one to get picked
and so when I left school I then decided
I wanted to be this really strong
confident woman and I decided the only
way to do that was to really challenge
myself and that was to go and join the
army and I remember the day that I told
my parents that I wanted to go and join
the army and my dad is an incredible
international folk singer my mom is the
most talented artist so they’re not
really typical army parents and they
were very shocked but it was the most
incredible experience for me because
when I was in the army
I then couldn’t have any excuses to get
out of doing sports and so then I
realized actually I could be fit I could
be strong and it helped me get over
confidence issues and in those five
years I served in the Army I as a woman
it was very tough because when I joined
it was in 1990 yeah 1992 and there
weren’t very many women in the army so I
had to really work hard to prove myself
and on one of the reasons as well this
make you laugh one of the reasons why
actually
and joined the army was to travel the
world so in those five years I went to
order shot Guilford Redding and London I
actually didn’t get out of South East
England that is literally where I stayed
any game that was due to the fact that
there weren’t really many other women in
the army and then this is my beautiful
sweetheart fiance and very sadly on
August 20th 1992 he got killed and I’m
sorry so this was a big turning point
for me and my whole world completely
changed and I then decided I wanted to
come out of the army and the two things
that got me through that were my family
and fitness so I then threw myself into
fitness because it was a way to get over
the pain of losing my fiance anyway and
so I then qualified as a personal
trainer and spent years doing a lot of
different courses and I was so excited
for my first job of becoming a personal
trainer and on the first day in my gym
the gym I was working in the big boss
was showing me around and he said now so
in the gym we have got 16 bits of
cardiovascular equipment so I said to
him about how many members do you have
here in the gym and he said well we have
1800 and members so my answer was well
if you have 1800 members and only 16
bits of cardiovascular equipment
what happens if everyone all turns up at
once and his answer was well they won’t
only 10% will ever come here and use the
gym and for me I found that really sad I
could see they liked it because they
could see they made money from it but
for me being a trainer and experiencing
the benefit of being healthy and fit I
was like but I want to reach out to
those other 90% of those people you know
how can I do that and so then I decided
or I had an idea of a way that I could
connect with those people that didn’t
want
go to the gym so I decided even though
I’m very dyslexic that I was going to
write a book and this book was designed
so it could teach people literally in
their front room how they could get
healthy and fit because the benefit of
that it will also then help their
confidence so I went to a publisher and
I have my book signed up straight away
and the book was a great success it was
sold internationally it was translated
into three different languages and then
there were lots of new doors then that
opened but I learnt the hard way and for
years and years I got really ripped off
by publishers I got taken for granted
I spent fortunes on getting new websites
done listening to kind of like empty
promises but for me I was just
passionate about making a difference so
I sort of believed a lot of what they
said and then an exciting thing happened
for me and that was social media was
born and I could then see this
incredible opportunity and then platform
for me to kind of give and share my
knowledge what I’d learn and share with
everyone else because now I knew that I
didn’t need a publisher I didn’t need a
TV company I’ve been told I couldn’t
write books I was dyslexic I was told I
didn’t have the face for TV and so then
with social media everyone was out
taking selfies okay I do take a few
selfish but not as many as this person
here and this is where then I just knew
now I had this opportunity to help get
people fit around the world and this was
a great thing before being a trainer and
working in a gym you’re just limited to
your demographics but now with social
media this platform then I could reach
out to everyone all over the world so I
was then for two years probably even a
little bit longer
I literally just self-taught myself I
just decided to and I gave up everything
I got rid of all materialistic things I
literally spent two years in a room just
learning and I learnt everything from
how to build a website I then designed
my own app I learned all about the
coding I learned about video editing I
learned about SEO just literally
everything because I’ve been told so
many times no you can’t do this I
thought yes I can and no one’s going to
stop me and I’m just going to learn and
this is the great thing with technology
one of the reasons we’re here talking
about this today is that it gives you
the ability to learn so I just and the
more knowledge you have the more power
you have and it was a very exciting
thing just learning all these new skills
and then I have my platform and my
biggest platform has been at YouTube and
YouTube for me is where I can offer
people nutrition I do nutritional videos
so I talked to them about nutrition I
talk to them about motivation and I talk
to them about fitness and the irony is
through having my youtube channel I then
got contacted by the top youtubers in
the UK the secona Jolla’s and Anna came
to me as she’d watched all my videos on
fitness she came to me and so I started
to train her and I’ve been training them
for the last couple of years so the
benefits of fitness as we all know and
this is where every single one of you
guys here in this room will all benefit
from being healthy and fit because it
reduces the risk of disease it reduces
anxiety and it’s just something that can
actually be free and in this world today
there are so many problems with obesity
and this is where it’s so good to be
able to just tell people you don’t have
to join a gym that you’re not going to
turn up to you can literally do so much
at home and the list goes on I mean I
could have just written so many there
exercise and fitness is really what we
should all be doing so really today this
is where I wanted to say like yes I can
so I’ve written now 21 books I was also
told as said that I don’t have face for
TV but you know
that doesn’t matter who cares what our
faces look like and I think that’s the
other thing there’s so much about body
image and about confidence and what I’ve
been able to do with my youtube channel
is create an online community which is
called hash tag Lucy squad and what’s
been incredible for me is now as a sort
of older woman I can look back and when
I was at school when I was brilliant
have any confidence I feel I can reach
out to now so many special young girls
but also people of all ages and even
young boys and teach them you know we
live in a world where everyone is trying
to be perfect and that she it’s just
about being real so that’s where that’s
been a really exciting thing and from I
also have done some stuff on Sky News
talking about how powerful it is to have
women in the army so my the way I want
to finish this is just say yes I can but
most importantly to everyone here yes
you can if you have a dream if you have
a passion then you have to believe in
yourself and you can do that and even
though I’m Dyslexic
this is deliberately spelt like this
good health is real wealth so thank you
very very much [Applause]