Is this the real deal or not? He dedicated this to Evel Knievel.
The night of nights.
My name is Robbie Maddison.
I'm a proud father, a husband,
I face my fears, I live my dreams,
and I'm here to tell you a little story about how I live bold.
What more is there to say?
I fell in love with dirt bikes at four years old.
Grew up riding them, racing them at the highest level until I was 16.
I wanted to be Robbie Knievel at that point,
and Robbie Knievel was jumping Caesars Palace.
I mean it's happened to me now, there's goosebumps on my arms,
it just - it's affected me you know.
And so that was really when the dream hit you know.
And then I became an electrician and ended up jet skiing on my day off.
Actually, I was on the back of one of the skis and I went catapulting in the area whilst all my buddies skip across the water,
so I hit the water with my mouth open laughing,
and I just ingested a bunch of this like dirty water.
A week later I had viral meningitis, viral encephalitis and I was fighting for my life.
Couldn't speak, I had stroke-like symptoms, lost control of the right-hand side of my body.
It was a long road to recovery but it changed me.
Obviously, it's a head injury so I had to kind of relearn a lot of stuff,
I lost a lot of memories, but I had different goals after it,
and I just wanted to live my ultimate dream you know.
I just, I really wanted to see if I was worthy of what I'd dreamt of my whole life.
I've been dead five times just to be totally honest with you.
One of the side effects to my illness was I have Secondary Impact Syndrome because of the trauma that happened in my brain.
So when I have a traumatic injury I go into seizure,
and if I don't have medical people there to take me out of seizure, ultimately I die.
And so my heart's stopped another four times,
since then I've been paddled back to life four more times,
so I definitely know I'm here for a purpose.
It took a lot of work and a lot of digging for me to kind of actually be at peace,
but I train to have a relationship with my soul and ask my soul to guide me.
If you listen to the energy when you ask yourself a yes or no question you feel,
if the answer is a no you'll feel the energy come down,
if the answer is yes, you'll feel it rise, and I literally use that to guide me,
and it's crazy like the way the universe has guided me.
If you believe in something enough, then go and do it.
We just want to spread the message of never quit, never giving up on your dreams you know.
Being okay to accept that you're worthy of what you dream of.
You've just got to put the hard work in and it's right there for you to take.
If it gives one person to go after what their ultimate dream is then I've done my job.
I think ultimately the thing that's driven me so much is the way I was brought up.
You know there's just certain things that I experienced as a kid that really made me want to be the best version of myself.
This water bike - it's probably one of the coolest things that I've designed.
There's a lot of set backs but I just had this crazy idea and I decided to follow it,
and it's led me to be able to ride on water.
I have an ultimate goal - it's dedicated to Evel Knievel.
I stood in front of his open casket and I said
"Thank you for what you've done and what you've created and I want to take the torch from where you've left it to a higher height with your blessing".
And I just knew that his spirit was with me.
And I'll be happy to hang up my boots when I can achieve what Evel Knievel couldn't achieve.
There's been times when I've forgotten that,
and that's why he sits on the wall there right with a Guinness Record to remind me
that I'm worthy of it and he wants me to do it you know.
I want to do it for his legacy, for everyone that's been inspired for him,
I want to do this because I know it's possible.
I'm Robbie Maddison and I think bold.