Neale Daniher’s new book ‘The Power of Choice’ is laced with messages of positive philosophy from which we can all benefit | Graham Cornes
How can a man who has now lost the ability to move, to speak and to eat have the ability – let alone the motivation – to write a book? Neale Daniher has and his process is nothing short of amazing, writes Graham Cornes.
Neale Daniher has written a new book – it’s called The Power of Choice.
That very sentence challenges reality. How can a man who has now lost the ability to move, to speak and to eat have the ability – let alone the motivation – to write a book?
The opening paragraph gives some indication: “MND has gradually taken away my ability to speak, to eat, to move freely. I rely on 24/7 care. To many, I must look like a man with no choices left. But let me tell you something: I still have a choice. Every day I choose how I show up. I choose my attitude.”
He has chosen to write another book – ostensibly to leave his life’s lesson as a legacy to his grandchildren – but the book is laced with messages of positive philosophy from which we can all benefit.
So how can a person who no longer can speak or move write another book (his first, When All Is Said and Done, was published in 2019)?
The process is amazing. He relies on Eye Gaze technology. It’s a system and a computer program that converts his eye-movement on a screen to text. It’s incredible, really.
The process detects which letter or predictive text his pupil settles on and converts it.
But think of the time required – the patience and the persistence. It would be like tapping your phone with one finger, one letter at a time and finishing with a 367-page book.
How can you measure his courage? How do you describe his resilience, his persistence, his stubbornness in refusing to succumb to that insidious disease?
The life expectancy of someone who is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease is Two-and-a-half to three years. By now we all know the story. He was diagnosed in 2013.
For 12 years he has kept it at bay, even as his body is ravaged by an increasing onset of symptoms.
It started slowly. For different people the symptoms vary but it started in his hands.
A mate noticed it first. His normally rock-hard handshake had weakened.
Footballers pride themselves on their handshake. Strong and firm, it is one way to create a positive first impression. You never forgot Ted Whitten’s handshake – warm, crushing, genuine, it was a portal to his personality.
The concern about Neil Daniher’s handshake led to the devastating diagnosis. He could have suffered in private but he took the battle public with the foundation of the FightMND charity in 2014.
Since then $130 million has been raised to fund research into the disease. The most visible event is the Big Freeze plunge before the AFL’s King’s Birthday match at the MCG.
That, plus the sale of the distinctive Big Freeze beanies, has contributed to the fundraising total.
But it comes at a cost as we have seen Daniher’s gradual decline. He hasn’t hesitated to play it out in public. We may not know him well but so many have been touched by him and crossed paths with him in his journey as a player, coach and football administrator.
He was just 18 when he played his first game for Essendon against Carlton in round 3, on March 31, 1979. Curiously, that round 3 game was the first game of the season, played as a stand alone game at the old Waverley Park. It was a precedent of sorts to the AFL’s modern day Opening Round (it was a stupid then as it is now).
However the following week in the proper round 1, Essendon played North Melbourne at Arden Street. It was Russell Ebert’s and my first game for North. We won but you couldn’t help but notice the two Daniher boys – older brother Terry wearing No. 5 and Neale wearing No.6.
We saw them at first hand and the potential was obvious. They were tough country kids – two of 11 children off the farm in Ungarie, deep in rugby league territory in southern New South Wales.
Neale was one of those kids who was good at everything. At Assumption College, that famous ‘football factory’, he is in both the football and cricket teams of the century.
But he was smart as well and studied computer science at university.
At the start of his footy career he was remarkably resilient, playing his first 66 games without missing one. In recognition of his leadership potential, he was appointed captain when he was 20!
Then, every footballer’s curse, the knees, let him down. He tried to come back in 1985 but between then and 1990, when he finally called time on his playing days, he could only manage nine more games.
Three knee reconstructions will curtail anybody’s sporting career. Coaching was then a natural progression and he was an assistant coach at Essendon and Fremantle before he was appointed senior coach at Melbourne.
AFL coaching is a tough environment where you are judged harshly and despite taking the Demons to a grand final in 2000, his coaching career came to an end half way through the 2007 season. But such was the respect in which he was held, he was soon appointed general manager of football operations for the West Coast Eagles – until his diagnosis in 2013.
“I don’t mind admitting that when things have gone badly in my life – my footy career being cut short, losing my coaching job, being diagnosed with a terminal illness
– there have been moments when I have wondered, How the hell do I get through this?,” he writes.
What follows are 19 chapters of how to make choices. Choose your attitude. Choose to be optimistic. Choose to do. Choose to be grateful (that’s a hard one). Choose to be courageous. And so it goes on.
All of us, at some time in our lives, will be confronted with challenges and tragedies.
I can’t accept that how you react to those challenges will define you but to have options as Daniher has listed at least gives some guidance, a train of thought and some hope.
When he addressed the Melbourne players and coaching staff before the Big Freeze 5 Queen’s Birthday clash he asked: “If you had one wish what would it be?”
His answer: When – not if – things get tough, that you conduct yourself in the right manner. If you’re not sure of what that means, The Power of Choice can give you guidelines.
It is true that we can become familiar with people in the public eye.
Neale Daniher is one such person. He has gone public to seek ways to attack and eradicate his illness. He calls it ‘The Beast’. He knows it will eventually take his life but he is choosing to fight and eventually that fight might finance a cure.
If buying and reading this latest book, so painfully and patiently compiled, will eventually help, it is the least we can do.
The bonus is that his words, directed at his grandchildren, also deliver a powerful message to any of us trying to deal with personal turmoil and challenge.
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