Inky Johnson had already overcome so much. He had transcended a childhood of poverty and violence to become a team captain for the University of Tennessee’s football team and projected first-round NFL draft pick. Before his junior year, he called his family and told them, “After this season, our lives are going to completely change. We’re never going to miss another meal.”

Awesome motivational talk from ⁦@inkyjohnson⁩ today at the #asipowersummit pic.twitter.com/Ur06jX8JeV

— Andy Cohen (@ASI_AndyCohen) October 29, 2019

But life didn’t go according to plan. Late in a game on Sept. 9, 2006, the cornerback delivered a hit that left him motionless. “As soon as I hit him, it felt like every breath in my body left,” Johnson recalled. Taken off on a spine board and rushed to the hospital, doctors soon realized that the subclavian artery in Johnson’s chest was torn. He was bleeding to death on the inside. One surgery and 360 staples later, Johnson’s life was saved, but his right arm was paralyzed. His NFL dreams and anticipated multimillion-dollar payday were gone. “When my arm and my hand got paralyzed, my heart and my mind did, too,” he said.

But as Johnson told ASI Power Summit attendees in his inspiring closing keynote speech, he emerged from that tragedy even stronger. “I look at life through a different perspective and a different lens,” Johnson admitted to the crowd. After the injury, Johnson returned to school to be with his team and complete his degree. (He holds a master’s degree in sports psychology from the university.) “This is about my life contract,” he explained in striving to fulfill his promise.

Today, beyond his career as an inspirational speaker, Johnson devotes much of his time mentoring athletes and underprivileged youth in addition to operating three homeless shelters in his home of Atlanta. His passions underscore the message he left with the audience. Give back to others. Make a difference in someone else’s life. Don’t get caught up in superficial things. Never take anything for granted. “It’s about who you become and what you did,” he said. “When my life stops, I want my life to mean something.”

Throughout the speech, Johnson shared inspirational and humorous stories from his life, including how he dropped out of public speaking class in college after just two days. “I thought, ‘I’ll never be needing this,’ ” he said to laughs. But the husband and father of two was also adamant that “perspective drives performance every day of the week,” and his terrible injury was a crucial moment in forming the person that he’s become. After all, in his intro video, he says, “I can’t change it. … And even if I could, I wouldn’t.”