On March 7th, 2024, Know Obstacles Founder Tony Lopez seized an incredible opportunity to share his compelling story on the renowned radio show “Conversations.” The segment, hosted by radio host Gregr, aired on multiple stations, including 99.9 KISW, 107.7 The End, 100.7 The Wolf, and 94.1 The Sound, giving Tony a chance to share his story.

As the Founder, CEO, President, and Inspirational Speaker of Know Obstacles, Tony felt deeply honored to be invited to share his journey. He extends heartfelt gratitude to Gregr and the Audacy Network for providing him with the platform to share his journey and advocate for change.

Check out Tony Lopez’s powerful interview on “Conversations” by either watching the video, listening to the recording, or reading the transcript.

Listen to the audio recording of the show or read the transcript below

Gregr, Conversations Host

Hi there and welcome to Conversations. I’m your host, Gregr. Thanks for spending some time with us here this weekend. Joining me this segment is Tony Lopez of Know Obstacles. Good morning, Tony.

Tony Lopez, Know Obstacles Founder, CEO, President, and Inspirational Speaker

Good morning to you, Gregor.

Gregr

Join us as we look at the issues that affect us here at home and our community and across the nation. Tony’s story is one of surviving and persevering as in childhood he overcame what surely could have been a death sentence to now half a life later. He’s talking to us about breaking down barriers and surviving a play on words with Know Obstacles, K-N-O-W as opposed to N-O, but it works together on levels. We’ll hear his story now on conversations.

All right, Tony, first, I think we should start with, at the very basics here, when I first met you, you told me a story about how your life had been a challenge since the earliest age. I think setting the tone today involves you telling that story if you’re comfortable.

Tony

Okay, yeah, when I was four years old, I went out trick-or-treating with my brother and sister. And we came home and my brother and sister wanted to get the candy right away. I didn’t want to, I wanted to go to sleep so I could wake up for school tomorrow. Kind of a weird kid. But the next day my mom woke me up and said, get ready for school. And about five minutes later she came back in the room and said, I told you, get ready for school. And I go, Mom I can’t move. And so right then, you know, panic set in. So basically my mom, not know what to do, took me to the doctors, our family pediatrician. They did some tests on me and found out that part of my brain started to die off back in my cerebellum area, which is the very stem of your brain. They sent me over to Children’s and unfortunately because it was back in ’68, they didn’t have medevacs to get me over to Seattle quick. So I had to get into an ambulance which looked like a hearse, take the ferry boat, wait for an hour. And by the time we get there to Children’s, they put me on a CAT scan and turned out that about 95% of my cerebellum was already gone. So the doctor said, well, we need to get him in surgery right away or he’ll be brain dead. So I went into surgery and I was laying in my room before getting ready for surgery, get ready to get my anesthesia, whatever. And I overheard the doctors tell my parents that it would be 80% chance of me not pulling through. They thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t. I heard that and right then I started getting religion real quick. And basically I woke up the next day to my surprise, my mom’s surprise, and certainly the doctor’s surprise.

Gregr

Congratulations. I’m glad that you made it. That’s an excellent turn to the story. Tony Lopez is our guest today. He’s telling us about pretty significant challenges in his life and how he’s been able to now turn that into moving forward with life and taking it head-on. Tony, you were left with significant physical challenges in your life. Can you describe those a little bit for the people that are listening on the radio?

Tony

Sure. Basically, the cerebellum is all your motor skills. It controls all your motor skills naturally. Since I don’t have very much of it, I have to do everything I want to do. I have to think the process through. Like as easy as walking down the street, I have to tell my mind, okay, don’t lean too far forward or you’ll start momentum and fall. Don’t stand too straight, you might fall back. Same with side to side. I got to concentrate and tell my brain to put one foot in front of the other and it’s very tiresome. I’ve got to do that basically for everything I take on in a daily routine.

Gregr

That didn’t stop you though. We talked about it before you got in here. You have a rich connection to the University of Washington for instance. I guess where did the things, especially as a youth, that’s probably the hardest time when you are a kid coming up and you’re doing it.

How were you able to push through that and not let it overcome you and still make it to do the consistent things that other kids your age were doing?

Tony

Well, basically when I got out of the hospital my best friend was a wheelchair and I kept that through I believe 11th grade, but what happened is you know, I was treated differently from by the kids, even the ones I knew before. And it was just very difficult to get kids to play because they didn’t want to do anything to hurt me or they didn’t want to play with a freak because it would look bad for their other friends and kids are real cruel. So that’s basically what I had to deal with every day

Gregr

How do you overcome that? How do you continue knowing that? Like, what do you draw inspiration from?

Tony

Well, basically, I am religious, and I do a lot of praying and working on myself, as far as my attitude goes. I really had a lot of help from my, well, most my family, but my mother would like sit me down and say, you know, you’re not basically normal. You can’t do everything the other kids do. But don’t ever let anybody stop you from what you want to do. If you think you can do it, do it. And if you fail, so what? But at least you tried. And who knows? Maybe you can do it. My mom was the kind of person that if I was sitting in or laying on the floor and said can you change the channel for me? She’d say crawl over the TV and do it yourself and that taught me how to do things for myself and make me aware that I could do these things and if I thought I could do these things More likely I would be able to do them.

Gregr

Our guest today is Tony Lopez. He’s an inspirational speaker. He’s gone through a lot and he’s working on a new campaign called Know Obstacles. And he’s dealt with a lot in his life as we’ve just heard from a disease that he got attacking his brain stem when he was just a child, all the way down to being a lifetime away from that and still pushing forward. It doesn’t stop with just kids that are bad to people. It continues into adulthood. And so I assume that you have to have a certain number of skills or thick skin or something like that to deal with people that are adults that should know better that are in the workplace or in the community. How do you find people behave in those circumstances?

Tony

Well, you know, it’s funny. People are cruel. Basically, they’re taught as kids to pick on someone if they’re different from you. And unfortunately, that leads to adults too. Ever since I’ve had this I don’t call it disability, I’ll call it unique ability. I can do things, but it’s a unique way I do them. I’ve had to put up with people saying, you know, like making comments of being on drugs or getting harassed, rejected out of nightclubs because they think I’m drunk. I feel kind of famous whenever I go to a mall. The security automatically follows me around the whole mall. And the worst of it is I basically get harassed by the police officers too. I either get harassed when I’m walking or if somebody sees me get into a car. They will call them and then they’ll come out and pull me over and try to give me a breathalyzer

Gregr

Based on assumptions that you don’t move like the rest of us, that you might appear to be inebriated when you’re just actually fighting against making your own brain do what you needed to do, right?

Tony

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that’s what’s really frustrating because, that’s the thing with all people today is they judge you. If you’re different, they’ll come to their own conclusion instead of just going up and asking you what’s wrong or is there something about you that’s making you act this way. No people, nobody talks about that. And it’s one of the things that really is frustrating.

Gregr

Well, so it’s a perfect segue then, because now you’re trying to, you’re standing up for yourself and other people in positions like yourself and your transition. How are you taking the steps to help overcome this for yourself and for others? What’s next?

Tony

Well, about in 2016, I decided to do start this charity organization to help not only disabled people but anyone with a disadvantage in life. Basically go be a voice for them, talk to them. I go to schools and do talks and just let them know that no matter what their problem is if it’s a disability or they’re suicidal or basically they feel like they’re not fitting in. Basically what I do is I let them know, you know, I tell them my story, my life circumstances and basically let them know that don’t let anybody take away what you want to do. Don’t let them control the outcome of your life. It’s your life. You should be able to live it the way you want to and do what you can. You can do anything you want to as long as you have the mind that you can do it.

Gregr

How do we connect with you? How do we find out more? We’re obviously limited by time on our radio segment, but there’s a lot to this story that people could draw from, or they might need your help on it. You might be able to inspire them or help them get to the next step or whatever. How do we connect with you?

Tony

Well, I have a website set up. It’s knowbstacles.org.

Gregr

That’s K-N-O-W Obstacles dot O-R-G.

Tony

There you basically get a hold of me and ask me questions and connect basically and I’ll provide what I can if it requires meeting you and talking with you. I can do that, too.

Gregr

KNOW, K-N-O-W obstacles dot O-R-G. You can even make a donation today while we wait for big fundraising news in the future. Tony Lopez Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

Tony

Thank you for having me