Steven C. Barber Presents Leap of Faith

About the Book

Determination doesn’t have to be defined by an age or a disability. It is simply measured by one thing—courage. I’m going to dream. And mine are going to be bigger and better than anybody around me. But I gotta start by making one step right now. So I start to move. I have to move. My survival depends on it. I haven’t stopped moving since. And in all the steps I’ve taken from that moment until now, I’ve learned to move pretty fast. Here’s the story behind some of those steps, the ones taken without my lower legs, the ones replaced by a hope and a heart. Numbers define this world, especially the world of track and field. Sometimes in life, however, you find yourself in a million-to-one long shot. And you realize that no amount of figures can save you. That’s when you have to close the calculator and take a leap of faith.

About the Author

Steven C. Barber is a two-time Oscar-shortlisted award-winning filmmaker living in southern California with his wife, Tamara Henry, and their dog, Jimmy Chew, and cat, Kozymel. Mr. Barber met Blake Leeper, “the American Blade Runner,” in London at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the greatest partnership and collaboration in sports history was born. Mr. Barber single-handedly created a juggernaut in the disabled world of athletics that had never existed before in American sports. Barber, who worked continuously, logging a hundred weeks for four years, was able to secure the biggest sponsors in the world, including Nike, Wheaties, Ernst and Young, and Oakley, just to name a few. Mr. Barber waged a nonstop campaign of news releases, pitch letters, and publicity photos that traced the Paralympians’ development. The result—a $100,000 book deal, a hundred-plus national TV appearances (including the first double amputee in the NBA Celebrity Game), red-carpet appearances, and nomination at the ESPY Awards, along with being the first double amputee on the Wheaties box in eighty years. Barber’s combination of hard work, passion, and divine intervention proved to be a public relations writing publicity bonanza. Mr. Barber took an African American double amputee from zero to hero in thirty-six months, inspiring millions in the disabled and able-bodied world alike. Mr. Barber has coined a new phrase, completely eliminating the word “disabled” and bringing into the American lexicon the term “differently able.” Barber has been recognized around the globe as a leader and storyteller of many of the high-level “differently able” athletes in the US and abroad, and Barber’s first film, www.unbeatenthemovie.com, is on Time magazine’s top ten summer documentaries of all time (http://olympics.time.com/2012/07/09/top-10-summer-olympics-films/slide/unbeaten-2009/). For more information please go to www.vanillafire.com and www.stevencbarber.blogspot.com.