Today I delivered speech #3, Get to The Point, for the Toast of Greenwood Village Toastmasters club. Here is the speech below. Enjoy!

How many people have been told they shouldn’t do something because something bad will happen? For example, you shouldn’t go skiing because you will blow out your knee. Or you shouldn’t go play basketball with your friends because you will break your ankle. Or you shouldn’t go play flag football because you will rupture your Achilles tendon?

Today I am going to share with you 3 reasons why men should always listen to their significant others and for the women, why their significant others should always listen to them. How did I come to this epiphany that I should always listen to my wife?

Received a call last year, on St Patrick’s Day, to join a flag football league with my best friend Josh.

My wife, Tashawna, told me not to play because I would probably get hurt. Now I have played sports my whole life, including rugby for 5 years, and the worst injury I had was a broken hand that kept me out for 4-6 weeks. Plus, I was only playing “flag football”, so I told her she didn’t know what she was talking about and I would be fine.

This brings me to the first reason why you should listen to your significant other and that is that they can usually sense things you cannot, almost a 6th sense.

So I joined the league and in our 2nd game of the season, our quarterback got hurt and it was so bad that he had to be rushed to a hospital, and was in critical condition with a ruptured spleen.

I shared this info with my wife. Again she re-iterated that I should not continue to play because I would get hurt. The quarterback getting hurt was proof that you could get hurt really bad playing “flag football”.

Two weeks later I had to take my wife to the airport at 11am. I also had a flag football game at 10am and we were short 1 player. We could finish the game with 7 players, but we needed at least 8 to start the game. So as long as I showed up and left at halftime, I could help the team and be home to take my wife to the airport by 11am.

Tashawna told me not to go to the game, since it was pointless to show up for only 1 half and what would happen if I got hurt. Of course I didn’t listen and I told her no matter what happened I would be home at 11am and take her to the airport.
So I went to the game and right before halftime I got hurt. As I was running I heard a loud pop and it felt at though someone had kicked me in the back of my calf. Since no one was around, I knew right away something bad had happened.

This brings me to the second reason why you should always listen to your significant other and that is they are usually right.

After laying on the ground in pain and my teammates coming over to see how I was doing, the only thing I could say was “ I should have listened to my wife and look at what happened since I didn’t”. Since I could not put any weight on the leg, I hopped all the way to the car.

When I got to the car I quickly found out I could only put a small amount of pressure on my right leg, so that mean I had to break with my left foot. Pulling out of the parking lot, I gave it a test run and sure enough put too much pressure on the brake and brought the car to a screeching halt!

I called my wife and told her that I was hurt pretty bad and would have to go to the emergency room. But, I would take her to the airport first. I don’t think she really knew how bad I was hurt until I hopped my way into the house, took about 10 ibuprofens and said “let’s go”.

Luckily I made it to the airport to drop off Tashawna and eventually made it to the ER (about 4 hours after the accident). I told the doctor what happened, showed him where it hurt, he did a quick test, and told me I had ruptured my Achilles tendon. He also said I would need surgery and would find out tomorrow when that would be.

To make matters worse, when the surgery was scheduled for a few days later, my wife had to change her travel plans and return early from her business trip.

All because I wouldn’t listen to her in the first place.

Through the entire ordeal (crutches and no weight bearing for two months, meaning my wife had to drop off and pick me up from work, to our trip to Puerto Vallarta with a Storm Trooper boot on, to my almost 100% recovery today), Tashawna never once said “I told you so or you should have listened to me.”

And this brings me to the last reason why you should always listen to your significant other and that is because they usually have your best interests in mind. The whole reason why Tashawna didn’t want me to play flag football was so I wouldn’t get hurt and have to go through all the pain and misery.

In the end, she knew how bad I felt for putting her through this and she knows today that I will always listen to her.

I don’t believe too much in fate but I am pretty sure that all of this happened so that I would realize the importance of listening to my wife. Even though our significant others can usually sense things we cannot, are usually right, and in the end have our best interests in mind, we still find ways not to listen to them.

I offer this story as a warning and hope that it will make you think twice the next time you choose not to listen to your significant other. If you do not listen, then you can end up like me with a ruptured Achilles Tendon and you may never be able to enjoy that weekend ski trip or basketball game at lunch again.