When Louis Speight was 15 he announced he wanted to become a wheelchair racer. Born with cerebral palsy and often told “you can’t do things” in his childhood, Louis had experienced bullying and an eating disorder.
"My own parents were sceptical, and rightly so," he says. "To look at me you'd have never said I would make an athlete." But Louis describes how his bloody-mindedness propelled him to become the men's European record holder in one of the most competitive of sports.
Sport made a profound impact in his life. "I am healthy and I can't see how I could have been healthy without the role that sport played," he says.
He understood how sport could help others, too, and after a sports science degree in which he specialised in clinical rehabilitation, started giving sports coaching on a zero-hours contract basis. Which proved frustrating: Louis "paid my dues" but felt undervalued and exploited.
So he and a colleague quit their jobs to launch Omnis Circumvado, a specialist sports coaching company which gives inclusive opportunities to people with complex needs.
The business works with children and young people in SEN (Special Educational Needs) schools and with elderly people in day centres. When launching a social enterprise "the house will set on fire," says Louis: it's not always plain sailing. But that determination along with careful planning paid off and Omnis is now thriving as Louis describes in this episode.
What next? Would growth be good? Is expansion the right thing to do? How did Louis put those fires out? And what's the story behind the name of the firm? Listen to this episode of The Business Live radio show with Louis Speight.