This interview was originally published through Audible Sessions.
Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.
Holly Newson: I'm Holly Newson. Welcome to Audible Sessions, a place we delve into the books, careers and lives of authors and creators. Racing driver and public speaker Nicolas Hamilton is the sort of person who will hold the space for everyone else. What a great guy to be in the room with. He also has cerebral palsy and has gone far beyond what other people might have said were his limit, time and time again. And he's written how that all played out in his book, Now That I Have Your Attention.
In this chat, we covered family relationships, working through the effects of bullying, biggest failures and even bigger successes. We're going in deep right from the start. So, quite near the start of the book, you said that you felt quite isolated and alone from a really, really young age. Why was that?
Nicolas Hamilton: I think as a disabled person, I felt like I was born into the world on the back foot. You know, I wasn't breathing when I was initially born. I was whisked away into an incubator. My parents were given the diagnosis and they were pretty much left to their own devices. And so I went into this world, which is basically an able-bodied world, it's not designed for disabled people like me, and I just had to get on with it in my own way. My parents decided to put me in schools full of able-bodied people. I wasn't in a special school or a school for disabled people. So, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was the only person of colour at school, the only disabled person. And up until the age of eight, I hadn't seen another disabled person, so I pretty much felt like I was the only disabled person in the world, at that point.
So, the feeling of isolation was pretty quick and pretty early in my childhood, but I couldn't really do anything about it. I didn't really realise how isolated I felt until I started writing this book. And through writing, coinciding that with therapy – I'm in therapy twice a week, and I'm never embarrassed or ashamed to talk about that. I'm very open about that in my book as well. And yeah, just showed how isolated I felt and how difficult it was for me growing up. And you carry a lot of your traumas, I would say, as a child into your years now, like me, as a 32-year-old.
HN: So, tell me a bit about how cerebral palsy affects you and your body.
NH: Yeah, so it's spastic diplegia, which is a form of cerebral palsy and, obviously, cerebral palsy affects so many different people in so many different ways. You've got hemiplegia, which is down one side. Diplegia, which is two limbs, like myself. And it can get as serious as not being able to feed yourself, being constantly reliant on a wheelchair or a helper. I sort of class myself as one of the lucky ones, now at least. But really, it's just super tight muscles. Spasticity and tightness in the muscles, which means that balance, you know, walking up and down stairs, is really, really difficult, and just general movement.
I would like to explain it in a way that every time I try and take a step or a movement, it's almost like someone's trying to push it back in the opposite direction. It's almost like you've got someone trying to make it difficult for you to make a move with your legs, so general balance and movement and manipulations of the legs and muscles is probably the hardest thing. But it's like a domino effect, so once you start trying to walk, it affects your skeleton in different ways, because everything has to try and compensate for the movement, so then that affects the spine. So, I've got scoliosis in the spine and I pop ribs, and my pelvis is super tight. And so it just compounds, but you get used to it. I don't know anything different.
So, I go through every day trying to make sure my muscles are loose by doing physiotherapy. It's super important, and just rehabilitation, generally. But at the end of the day, you can't have the disability take over your life. You've got to grab it by the scruff of the neck, if you can, and try and do the best you can with it. And that's how I've lived my life so far and, yeah, it's not been easy, but it's a powerful journey.
HN: And what you write about when you felt alone, at a young age, I think that's something that other people with disability might relate to, realising way younger than anyone who is able-bodied, given our society is set up for able-bodied people, that they have to be self-reliant. And there was a time in high school when you started using a wheelchair because the school was much bigger, and getting to lessons and things. So, what was that like, that moment, in terms of how you felt included or really not included?
NH: Yeah, I mean it was a big decision for me to go into a wheelchair because physically I was able to walk, but the long distances were really difficult for me to do. And it just started taking its toll on my physicality, and I got to classes and I was absolutely drenched with sweat, and it was really hard to really focus. I had so much pain. So, it was a big decision because, obviously, I just wanted to fit in and be one of the lads and not be seen as someone different. And I think, to start with, it was a novelty because other children, or kids, hadn't seen another kid in a wheelchair before, so wheelchairs were new to them. And so they saw me as quite cool, to start with. It was like, "Oh, my God, Nic's in a wheelchair." You know, "Can I push him? Can we go here? Can we go there? Can I go to break early or lunchtime early?" So, it was novelty to start with and so I instantly felt, “Okay, they sort of put me in a position where people understood that I was different and they were okay with the difference.”
I got more comfortable around being in my wheelchair, and I guess because I was in my wheelchair, I didn't have to walk and maybe I was a little bit apprehensive and maybe embarrassed about the way I did walk because disability's just seen as super uncool. So, that way it meant that I didn't have to walk long distances, I didn't have to show off my disability and people could see straightaway I was a disabled person because I was just in this wheelchair. So, it had its pros and cons, that's for sure, but it was a really difficult time for me to try and contend with because, really, I wasn't being me, I wasn't being the person that I am. I was just trying to fit in with everybody as much as I possibly could. And, yes, it helped physically for me, where I didn't have to walk, but I think it took its toll as time got on, and by the time I got to 15, the novelty wore off and I just got bullied from there.
HN: And you say that you never talked to your parents about the bullying. Why did you never speak to them about it?
NH: I don't know. I mean, I've grown up in a household that, we have so much going on, we had so much going on with Lewis and his career and we're all focused on him and going to races every weekend. And I've been a person to never put my baggage on people, and I say in the book, I'm not a role model in that sense. I just never wanted to be a burden on anybody, and I've been taught from a young age to deal with my struggles myself. If I fell over, my dad would be like, "Nic, get up, do it yourself. I'm not going to help you." And so it made me super independent physically, but then independent mentally, where I didn't feel like I needed to ask my mum for help or advice, a) because I didn't want my mum to worry. My mum has that motherly instinct. As soon as I said I was being bullied, I didn't want her to lay awake at night and worry about it. She already has to worry enough about me, in general. And so I didn't want her to stress, didn't want her to worry, but then I also didn't want her to give me help or advice because she's taught me from a very young age to follow my own strength and make my own decisions.
And so I thought, right, I've got to tackle these bullies myself, but not in a way that is detrimental to me. I have to be respectful to them even though they're disrespecting me. And so I didn't tell her anything. And I don't agree that that's the right thing to do. That's just what worked for me. That's the whole point of the book. I don't know the answers of anything. This is just what worked for me as a disabled person and maybe you can take a little bit of my advice, if it helps, but if it doesn't, then okay. But if it does, then great.
HN: Bullying, obviously, can have a lasting effect. What do you think the impact of the bullying has been on you? I mean, you said that you're in therapy, so I'd imagine it's something you've touched upon.
NH: Yeah, bullying cuts deep. And it doesn't just cut deep to a point where you're worried about yourself or anxious about yourself in the moment. It can have a long-lasting effect for when you get to the age that I am today, like 32, and how you feel about yourself, your identity, who you are as a person. And it's not just bullying in person. It can be bullying online.
A lot of people, they take a lot of things to heart because most people want to be accepted, they want to be understood, want to be cool or whatever it is. And if someone's getting bullied, they don't look at the bully themselves, thinking maybe it's the bully that's in the wrong. They look at themselves and think, “Oh, is it me? I must be ugly or I must be this or I must be that or I must be uncool.” And they don't just take in that moment, they take I'm uncool, I'm ugly, they take that all the way through their life, which is pretty much what I did. I got bullied, I felt uncool, so for a long period of time I looked at myself in the mirror, up until my early-30s, thinking I'm uncool and I'm ugly.
And so I'm not in therapy for my bullies or because I've been bullied, I'm in therapy for personal growth and to understand myself more and more and more and the people around me, becoming more empathetic around people that give me a lot of grief and trouble. But also growing as a human being, an all-rounder, and I think it definitely started from being bullied at 15. And as I say in the book, what's been really cool is I've been going to therapy and learning more and more about myself, literally going home and then writing what I've learned through therapy into the book. And one of those moments was saying pretty much just, “I feel like an 11-year-old in my wheelchair in the dark,” like I was at school. And that's how I feel even now, and that's all come through bullying. So, even though I don't carry that with me every single day, I think that's where the core is. So, with bullying, it gets you to the core. And it's a real long process to get through it or get past it.
HN: Yeah. And you mentioned Lewis before and how busy your family were. Because of the focus on him and his racing, what did you see as your role or your place within the family?
NH: That's a really good question. I could've been a person that complained, being like, "Hey, why are you not putting any attention on me? What about my life or what about my career or anything like that?” I never was. I never expected any attention. I never wanted to be the star of the show. I am still Lewis's number-one fan and always want the best for him, and so I felt like my role was, I would say I was the glue. I'm the glue to the family. I feel like I keep it together. Everybody's going off in their own directions, doing different things and they all circle back to me. So when it comes to Lewis, I feel like I'm the person that truly, truly, truly has his back and understands him fully, as any brother would. I just wanted to be a support mechanism for both my brother and my dad, and I feel like I'm a big support mechanism for my mum as well.
HN: That's a lot for one person to take on.
NH: I know. I know. I know. We're all so driven as a family and we all want to do our own things. And at some point, you rely on someone to ask questions and to get help from, and I feel like I'm that person for all of my family. So yeah, it is a lot. It doesn't happen all the time, but at least they know. So if my brother calls me, he needs help, I'm there. My dad calls me, he needs help, I'm there. And with my mum, I'm always there for her if ever she needs me.
And so, I don't know, I've just been this big pillar of strength and support for them and I'm glad I am. It's a lot of pressure sometimes, but it is what it is and, at the end of the day, just like I say in the book and how I feel my purpose is, is I'm here for others. I'm here to help other people and support other people and that's the purpose behind why I've put everything on a page and down on paper. Hopefully my experiences in life just help other people because, really, I'm not really bothered about helping myself anymore, which is really interesting. I've become a selfless person. And as my dad always said, "To help yourself, you have to help others." I truly, truly believe that.
HN: Alongside writing this book, which I suppose fits into a lot of the stuff you've done around public speaking and motivational work, you are a racing driver. So, I want to touch on that a bit, and tell me what gaming gave you, what doors that opened up.
NH: I mean, gaming was everything to me. I put all of my passion and desire through motorsport into gaming because I didn't feel like I could ever have a real-life racing career. Firstly, it's super expensive. Second, it's very physical and, at the time, there wasn't a physically disabled person racing the top flight of British motorsport. And so it just seemed impossible. But it opened this door for me to understand the ins and outs of accelerating and braking and racing lines and race craft and car set-up and all that kind of stuff, and just general technique.
So, you learn a lot through gaming and that was quite some time ago, 2009. It doesn't sound a long time ago, but technology has improved so much that you can literally take what you've learned on a game and put it in a real race car. And it helps, so that gave me the ability to actually put that into real life. Getting the opportunity to drive for the first time, even though I'd never driven a car before, the techniques were very similar – braking, accelerator, turning, et cetera. That opened a whole new opportunity, potentially, for me to start something that I thought was completely impossible.
HN: And in racing now, you've had some really terrifying moments and some really big achievements. Does that balance out for you as a net win?
NH: [Laughs] That's such a good question. If you think about it, at the end of the day, I've gone from being born at four-pound-four, told that I would pretty much never walk and if I was going to walk it would be with a stick, to being bullied at school, being in a wheelchair, struggling for purpose, to being a racing driver who has created history in the sport, achieved more than I could ever wish to achieve in the sport. Racing against able-bodied people, beating them at their own game, winning Disability Sports Icon 2023 awards and being recognised for my achievements and how good I am as a driver. But not just that, I've inspired thousands and thousands of people, both able-bodied and disabled, through what I've done, through my achievements, through my mentality, my strength and really taking my disability to a new height.
If I didn't have that to focus on, I would still be in a wheelchair. I wouldn't be living independently in my own house. I don't know where I would be. And so motorsport, I haven't just achieved something in motorsport, I've completely turned my life upside down at the same time. And with motorsport, inevitably, there's going to be accidents and crashes and whatever. So, this is 100 percent a win, even if I crashed a million times. The fact that I'm in a race car, beating and racing against able-bodied people, considering where I was when I was an 11-year-old kid – didn't think I could have relationships, didn't think people would really give me their attention or care about. To have achieved what I've achieved and put myself in the history books is definitely a win, yeah.
HN: How do you keep motivational, grow motivation and hold on to self-confidence when you're not getting that external validation? When people are saying that's not a thing you can do?
NH: Like I say in the book, self-reliance is ingrained in me and there's so many people along my journey, even now, tell me I can't do something or maybe I'm not good enough or maybe I'm wasting my time or I should do something else. And it took its toll to start with, but you really have to dig deep and find your own inner strength, your own inner voice. And through therapy and lots of different types of therapy, it's taken me 10 years to really get over certain things.
I'm a big believer in therapy and self-talk. And self-talk and self-motivation has always pushed me through, got me through to that next barrier, to that next obstacle, and then overcome that. So, I've never looked to a friend and said, "What do you think?" Because, really, it doesn't matter what they think. All that matters is how I feel and what I want to do, so that's why I said in the book, even if everybody on the planet said you can't do something and you still believe you can, you still have a chance.
So I've got to a point where I don't need anybody else's validation. I just need my own personal strength. And, yeah, that can be seen as quite lonely sometimes because you're just not really asking or looking for any help, but it makes me fully responsible for every direction and decision that I make. I think people need to start taking responsibility for their own actions. I'm just one to always look deep within myself and never blame others if it goes wrong. And so, yeah, that's what I do.
HN: You also write that you don't think that people should ever take the easy road. So, I'm really curious about this because there's pushing yourself and not taking the easy road, and then there's not giving yourself any self-compassion. And you seem to have some balance of the two, which I think is really difficult. So, how have you got to a place where, a) you never take the easy road and b) you can balance that with giving yourself compassion and maybe every now and then asking for help if you need it?
NH: Yeah, and that's basically the balance that I've managed to strike, and it's taken me 32 years to get to that point. It all comes from my mum, comes from my dad and, really, it started out being like my parents, they didn't help me on purpose. It sounds like they're awful, but they really weren't awful. They were just like, "No, Nic, you have the strength to do it yourself." And if I said to them, "Yeah, but can I go in this direction, instead?" they would always be like, "Well, but you can physically do this direction, so why would you choose this direction instead? Why don't you give the harder route a go and work backwards, if need be, from there?"
So that's always been ingrained in me. I would always take the harder route because it's almost like, I've never really thought about this, but you remember, my GCSEs, there was always like the higher paper and then the foundation paper. Whereas with the higher paper, to get a pass, you'd only need to get 20 percent, but with the foundation paper, you'd need to do 100 percent. It's meant to be easier, but you've got to 100 percent of the easy route all the time, whereas I feel like taking the harder route by pushing yourself more and more and more, you inevitably get further than you would've done if you had just taken the easy route all the time. So, that's always been in my mind.
Some days, you gotta be like, “No, no, no, I'm really trying. It's really hard. I've chosen the hardest route, which is what I wanted to do,” but it's okay to sit down and sit back and go, “Yeah, today's really tough, today's really hard. Doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop taking that route. It means that I might just go down the easy route for a little bit, just to get a little bit more self-confidence.” Because sometimes going the hardest way can really take it out of you. So, you can almost use the easier bit to recharge. That's a bit of self-compassion. But for me, I've always chosen the hardest path because I feel like it just always leads to personal growth. So even if it doesn't work and I fail, I feel like I've grown really well through that failure. I would rather fail at the hardest route than succeed at the easiest route all the time.
HN: And given you think that failure is so important – you write that in the book – what would you say your biggest failure is?
NH: My biggest failure. So, I have two. Obviously, my gambling issue that I went through, gambling addiction that I went through, that's a big, big failure on my part. Even though it's led to personal growth, it was a huge, huge failure on my part that I've never really forgiven myself for.
HN: What happened there? Why did you start gambling and what was the situation?
NH: I was just completely lost in life, totally lost in terms of my direction and where I was going to go. Motorsport was everything to me and motorsport can really blind you with the value of money because, for example, to race in the British Touring Car Championship is half a million pounds a year. So, if you do a deal with someone for £20,000, it doesn't get you a lot in British Touring Cars. But in general day-to-day life, £20,000 is a lot of money. So, I was young, I had disposable income because of my own work and effort that I was putting into gaming. But all of my racing career pretty much folded and I never went to Lewis for financial help for motorsport. A lot of people think I do and he pays for everything and that's really not the case.
And because I didn't have this structure, I had no structure in my life – if I'm being brutally honest, it's hard to make money as a disabled person. There's a lot of people out there, able-bodied people out there, saying that they're making a lot of changes and it's all about accessibility, et cetera, et cetera. But there's so much more work that needs to be done, and able-bodied people thinking they're really making a change and it's really making an impact, but it's actually not. There's so much more that can be done. So I felt like I couldn't make money in the normal, conventional way. It's tough. And my brother was on an amazing trajectory. My dad was a businessman on his own trajectory. And I was just struggling. I didn't know where I was going. All my racing had gone. I had some disposable income and I thought that that was my savior, maybe I can make some crazy, crazy money. I never wanted to be a multi-multi-millionaire and fly around on private jets and all that sort of stuff. But I had no structure at all and I was just completely lost. And I found it and it just put me in a hole. I just spiraled down, down, down, downwards and I couldn't get out of it.
HN: How did you get out of it?
NH: I got out of it when I basically hit the bottom. I felt like I was at the bottom of a well. And once you get there, you look at the top, and you're like, “Oh, shoot, I'm really deep in here.” And the first thing I did was go to my parents, go to my mum. My mum, she's a huge support mechanism for me and she helped me just get some structure around my day-to-day. I gave her control over my finances, and just get up in the morning, have a shower, put your clothes away, tidy up, look after the space that you live in was the way forward and the way out. And then, as you read in the book, everything started to just turn, but not through me focusing on my parents and trying to get help from them. I actually found it within myself, being like, “Right, no, I'm actually going to work to find this money. I want to race.” Then I found public speaking and then I was getting a lot of positivity, people being like, "Ah, Nic is valuable, he is someone of value. He is worth sponsoring" or "He's worth speaking in front of our corporate clients," or whatever it was.
And it was because I went the opposite direction of “I'm a disabled Black man with nothing now, and I have no value.” So, I was stuck in a dark room, feeling like there's no point me being around. And so to finally pull myself out was an amazing achievement. But it's just like I write in the book, it's a scar, it's a stain, I would say, on my personal being and a failure on my side because I should have known better. I feel I should have known better. But when you're so lost, it's hard to think rationally. Then when you get into that place, you can't find any other direction than downwards until you get to the bottom. And so that's how it happened.
HN: Do you think we do enough to protect people from getting into that situation, becoming addicted to gambling?
NH: No. If I'm being honest, I don't think there's enough help for disabled people, accessibility-wise, and I don't think there's enough help for problem gamblers, [or] anybody that's addicted to alcohol or drugs. Gambling, for example, is everywhere. You just need to turn on your TV and there's an advert for it, or you look at football and it's everywhere. And all they say is, "Gamble responsibly." That's all they say. They don't say what it's like when it's actually gone wrong. They just say, "Oh, well, we said gamble aware. Be aware, or gamble responsibly." And that's almost like, “Well, they've done their bit.” But I think anybody can potentially find alcohol. It's easy to buy. And it's easy to go into that direction. I don't know anything about drugs. I've never bought drugs or anything, so that, for me, that's a harder thing for me to access. But gambling and alcohol, it's so easy to get wrapped up in a loop.
HN: Was alcohol part of the problem for you?
NH: No, no, no. I don't drink. I'm teetotal. I've never drunk ever. Well, I would say I'm teetotal, but I probably get drunk twice a year. You know, maybe once for my birthday and once at Christmas. Alcohol's never been a problem, never will be a problem.
HN: And you write in the book that sports people are much more likely to become problem gamblers than the rest of the population. Why is that?
NH: Well, take footballers, for example, they might be on 50 to 100 grand a week, and they have all of this disposable income, but also they have this desire to want to win something or get better at something. And so it's the perfect place for someone who is competitive that has money to get involved in. It can start as fun, like for me, it started as fun. “Oh, this is fun.” I actually enjoyed playing the cards, for example. It wasn't thinking about the money. But then you're like, “Oh, shoot, I lost. I don't like losing.” And then you're like, “Oh, I want to win,” and then the feeling of winning is great.
I feel like people like myself, who have been in a competitive environment their whole life, when you start losing all the time, and then you start thinking about yourself, “Oh, am I a loser, because I'm just losing every time I do something?" It didn't get to a point, for me, where I felt like I was a loser. It was like, I've just lost a load of money and then the money became a problem as I want to win the money back. Now I'm thinking, “Oh, shoot, I've lost my wage or I've lost this or I've lost my rent or whatever,” and then it became more serious.
But I think for athletes and sports people, they've got this disposable income, they're then sent away or sent home for a couple of weeks through training or whatever it is. And it's just so easy to access your money, and it's so easy just to put in a couple of hundred quid into a betting site and just sit and play. It's so easy. It's too accessible.
HN: And you said there were two failures. Should I ask about the second?
NH: Ah, my second failure's my big crash at Thruxton. Huge, huge, huge accident that I had, and I can put that down to a lack of experience. I was put in the deep end with motorsport and I was trying to learn to swim, basically. So, inevitably, you're going to crash at some point. But it was unfortunate, the impact that that crash had on me mentally, and I don't think it was my fault in terms of, I feel like if I had a bit more time to practice and this and that, I would've been able to stop that from happening.
But I never, ever put responsibility on anybody else, other than myself. So, for me, it's a failure and one that I think damaged the foundation, I would say, of my career because it was still like a tarnish, just like my gambling was. It was a tarnish on my career when I was in the race car, just like every day I carry the scar of my gambling with me. Because I think it changed me as a driver, only three races into my career. But at the end of the day, it's been an amazing journey and everybody goes through life's up and down, and I don't think if any of this stuff I've been talking to you today happened, the book wouldn't be sitting here.
And my book isn't about, “Hey, look at me, look how amazing I am.” It's, “Hey, look what I've been given, in terms of I got given this condition and there's loads of parents that are in the same position my parents are in, thinking, ‘What's my son or daughter going to be like when they get to 30? Will they be able to have relationships? Will they be able to be a part of normal society? Will they have friends? Can they get a job? Can they go out to the pub and have a laugh and be a part of everybody?’”
And that's the whole point is, yes, they can. They can just be a normal human, because there's a lot of my problems and troubles, it's not because I'm a disabled person, it's just because I'm human. So, my book relates to disabled people and able-bodied people as well. And, hopefully, you learned something as an able-bodied person reading my book, too.
HN: Yeah, definitely. And how did you find narrating the audiobook?
NH: Well, I was definitely not a bookworm. I wasn't brought up around books. My dad never read books, my mum never really reads books, so reading has always been a struggle for me. I remember my publisher said, "Nic, we need you to read the Audible version." And I was, "Oh, my God." I was really nervous and I've read my book probably, what, six or seven times now? Because obviously you gotta do the editing and all of that. And so all the way through the editing process I was reading aloud and practising, basically.
So, I've been practising for months and months and months and months, ready for the Audible version, so I'm really proud of it. I think I read it really well. It goes back to when you're talking about when you're a kid. I remember being a kid on the carpet, with all your mates, and you're getting a story told to you. I couldn't believe the teacher could always put like a personality into the words that she's reading. And I was able to do that, able to put my own personality to me narrating it. I'm really proud of that. At the end of me recording everything, I said to the girl that was recording it, I said, "I was uncomfortable when I first started reading, so can I now go back and read the first chapter again? Because I'm in a completely different headspace, I'm so much more comfortable.” It's been great. What an amazing opportunity to get, and after absolutely everything. I always pinch myself and think to be a published author is, I can't believe I called myself an author, but—
HN: You are an author.
NH: Ah, yeah [laughs]. It is an amazing achievement. And to be actually narrating my own book, never thought that would ever happen, which has been incredible, so I'm super grateful.
HN: Amazing. Well, Nic, this has been such a pleasure to chat to you. Thank you so much.
NH: Thank you so much.
HN: Thanks for listening to Audible Sessions. If you enjoyed this and you want to hear more, search Audible Sessions on the Audible website or on the app. Now That I Have Your Attention, written and narrated by Nicolas Hamilton, published by Octopus, is available to listen to on Audible now.
