Finding Your Confidence To Be Authentically You, with Paralympian Bethany Zummo

In this episode of the Started With A Dream Podcast presented by
9INE POINT, Jacolby Gilliam has a conversation with volleyball
Paralympian and owner of Zummo Collective, Bethany Zummo. Bethany
shares her story on how she became a volleyball athlete, some of
the significant challenges she faced along the way. Through this
journey, Bethany has grown and developed a new level of
self-confidence to be the best she can be at what she
loves. 


She believes that everyone has their own 'normal,' and you have
to embrace your own normal instead of being afraid of not being
someone else's normal. Bethany wants other adaptive athletes to
know that they are more than able to not focus on the label this
is out there as disabled. Because of COVID, her Paralympic title
defense has been put on hold for a while in 20202. However,
Bethany has spent her time trying to curb the spread of the
COVID. By using her sewing skills with the help of her family,
The Zummo Collective was started to create filtered masks as a
way of helping others and giving back to the community.


Key Points:


Intro (0:11)


The biggest goal Bethany's wanted to achieve as a Paralympian
(0:52)


What is normal and why Bethany believes normal can only be
self-defined (1:51)


Bethany's first sports journey and some of the major challenges
she faced (2:39)


How Bethany hurdled through the challenges she faced to develop
and reinforce self-confidence (4:54)


Why it's important to embrace diversity (6:48)


When Bethany realized she was good at the sitting game (10:17)


Self-belief; Why Bethany beliefs that she deserves the best and
how she works hard to arrive as the best (11:50)


Why Bethany decided to try the sitting volleyball (15:27)


Some of the fears and struggles Paralympian's face about wanting
to not be labeled and why it's okay to not feel okay at first
(17:10)


Bethany's dreams of the Olympics and Paralympics pre-COVID and
how she was able to mentally carry on regardless of the current
situation (21:40)


How Bethany is trying to make the most of the situation to help
as many people as she can (26:15) 


How Bethany became the mask maker to render as much aid as she
could to others (27:00)


Other ways Bethany and her sisters have been giving back to their
community (32:34)


Quotes:


"I would love to leave the sport knowing that it can be really
competitive and really challenging to play. And that's the goal,
I think for anyone, leaving the sport better than you found it."


.


"If I met someone who was like a little Bethany, like I would
want to do my best to empower them and tell them, like, I know
that you, you think you think this way now, and it's okay that
you feel this way and it's not your fault that you feel this
way."


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