The Seven Longest Yards with Chris Norton

What kind adversity are you facing in your life and how are you dealing with it?

Chris Norton is the bestselling author of The Seven Longest Yards, a book he wrote with his wife Emily about their journey through extreme adversity. In 2010, Chris was an enthusiastic college athlete with an exciting future ahead of him. Then, in the third quarter of an ordinary football game, he collided with a players’ knee and fractured his C3 and C4 vertebrae. This injury left him paralyzed with a 3% chance of ever regaining any movement from the neck down.

Life as he knew it was over.

Chris Norton talks about how he fought his way from feeling hopeless and helpless to becoming unstoppable. He also tells us how to stretch our identities beyond who we think we are, how to persevere through the darkest moments, and how life’s catastrophes can become its greatest gifts.

Get ready for an arsenal of tools to help you turn adversity into a driving force!

[bctt tweet=”‘Life’s lowest moments can be the source of our greatest gifts.’—Chris Norton @chrisnorton16″ username=”@gooddadprojct”]

Chris Norton

On October 16, 2010, playing for Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, Chris Norton was severely injured while making a tackle on a kickoff, fracturing his C3-C4 vertebrae. After initially being told he had a 3% chance of ever regaining movement below the neck, Chris has defied the odds by walking across the stage of his college graduation with the help of his fiancée, Emily, which has gone viral.

At the age of 20, Chris started a non-profit organization, the SCI CAN Foundation, to help others with spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders. The foundation has raised over a half million dollars to date. Chris’s book The Power of Faith When Tragedy Strikes is an inspiring father-son memoir that recounts Chris’s seemingly insurmountable quest.

Chris has been on ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, FOX & Friends, NBC Nightly News, featured on CBS Evening News, ABC News, TODAY, TIME, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, E!, MTV, People, The Chive, and featured internationally across the globe through media networks such as Fuji Network in Japan and Daily Mail in Europe, among others.

[bctt tweet=”‘I couldn’t let my physical paralysis to paralyze my mindset.’—Chris Norton @chrisanorton16″ username=”@gooddadprojct”]

The Seven Longest Yards

He was told he’d never walk again. She was losing hope that she’d ever feel whole again. This is their miraculous true story of defying the impossible.

Quadriplegics simply do not walk again – yet millions watched as Chris Norton defied incredible odds and took step by impossible step across his graduation stage. With his fiancée Emily by his side, those unbelievable steps became the start of an extraordinary journey for them both. Told from both of their unique perspectives, this moving story invites you to find, as Chris and Emily have, that God can transform our lowest points into life’s greatest gifts.

In a moment, Chris went from a talented college football player with a promising future to a quadriplegic with a 3 percent chance of ever moving or feeling anything below his neck, much less walking again. Determined to prove the doctors wrong, he pushed himself through grueling, daily workouts to achieve his goal four years later: walking the stage to receive his college diploma with Emily’s help, and to the world’s astonished applause.

Meanwhile, Emily faced her own challenges as she sunk into a deep battle against anxiety and depression, despite her life’s outward blessings. Day by day, decision by decision, Chris and Emily committed themselves to taking the extra step, trusting God, and leaning on the help of others. In a story of courageous faith and grit, this extraordinary couple’s journey ultimately led them to tackle the seven longest yards – down the wedding aisle and into a new life together.

And what a new life it is: Chris and Emily have adopted five beautiful girls and welcomed foster children – seventeen and counting! – into their home and hearts. Let this book be your inspiration for defying your own impossible, and finding joy on the other side.

[bctt tweet=”‘I’ve been able to use my pain for a purpose and that has given me more energy and life than ever before.’—Chris Norton @chrisanorton16″ username=”@gooddadprojct”]

What You’ll Learn

• How going through trials teaches you and sharpens you
• The value of finishing physical challenges you think you can’t do
• No matter what happens, you have to show up the next day
• If you don’t like where you’re at, then it’s up to you to do something about it. Why complain and feel sorry for yourself when you have control to change the outcome?
• At times when you feel sorry for yourself, channel it into what you can do.
• Focus on your God-given abilities.
• How comparing yourself to others will slow you down get you in the bad habit of dwelling on your shortcomings
• Identity is about who you are, not what you but who you are as a person
• How Chris lives without regret
• How he met his wife, Emily
• How Chris proactively combats dark moments
• Chris’s parenting style with his foster daughters
• How at one time, he and Emily had seven kids in the house
• As a dad, you don’t focus on the chaos, but the moments of transformation and progress
• How God and faith is the foundation of their legendary marriage
• If there is a void, don’t put it on your significant other.
• Chris’s advice for men who aren’t spiritual
• His wife’s struggle with anxiety and depression
• Chris’s advice for people who feel like there is no hope:
  • Flush out your feelings
  • Let go of what’s out of your control
  • Get out of your head with a book, podcast, or video
  • Talk to somebody
  • Choose hope, even when you don’t know where you are going