When your Social Security disability hearing is scheduled, you can help your cause by thinking about Peyton Manning while you prepare for your hearing date.

Manning, as you probably know, recently retired from the National Football league after 18 seasons, capped off by a league championship this past February.

But Peyton’s greatness and success on the football field is not especially relevant to your disability case. Instead, his focus and drive in coming back from a serious neck injury and four (4) neck surgeries, including a disc fusion, are worthy of review.

Peyton could have retired after his September, 2011 surgery. Following this surgery and continuing to this day, he has no feeling in the fingertips of his throwing hand. When he first started rehabbing, he could barely throw a football 10 yards and was in constant pain.

Had Peyton retired in 2011 or 2012 no one would have questioned his decision, nor would his status as a hall of famer been challenged.

Instead, Manning fought through intense physical pain to retrain his body to withstand the rigors of professional football. No doubt he also fought through emotional turmoil as the one career he had pursued since grade school seemed to be coming to an end.

Peyton’s final season – the one just past – was not a great year statistically for the Denver quarterback. He was benched for poor play and a foot injury in mid season and his team’s victory in the championship was more due to the Bronco defense than to Manning’s quarterback play.  Many of his games this past year would be considered unsuccessful work attempts if evaluated by a Social Security disability decision maker.  Peyton’s final season could easily have ended with him on the bench with his team being bounced from the playoffs. Good luck and perhaps a little good karma allowed him to close out his career with a championship win.

Social Security disability judges do not expect you to be Peyton Manning. They understand that an elite athlete like Peyton will have access to the finest of medical care and a customized rehabilitation program.

But judges do expect you to fight against the idea that you are disabled from working. They expect that if you undergo surgery you will participate fully in all post surgical rehabilitation and that you will try to return to some sort of work even if you are earning less money and a less stimulating job.

This is why disability judges will ask you if you have tried to work after a surgery or course of treatment, and they will pay close attention to your behavior during and after medical treatment.

While it is true that not every neck or back surgery will restore your full function, many surgeries do restore enough function to allow you to return to work if you follow through with post surgical physical therapy, home exercise, diet modification and compliance with medication management.

You have a much better chance of winning disability benefits if you come to your hearing with a history of multiple unsuccessful work attempts and a medical record documenting regular doctor’s visits and full compliance with prescribed treatment.

By contrast if you medical record documents a surgery, limited follow up and no effort to try to work, your disability judge may conclude that you have given up and don’t want to work. And in this challenging climate where disability approvals are down 25% from just a few years ago, your judge is likely to decide that you are not a credible claimant and that you have not tried hard enough to stay off the disability rolls.

I encourage all of my clients to see themselves as fighters like Peyton Manning who see disability as an absolute last resort. Your medical record and unsuccessful work attempts will do more to convince your judge than anything you could ever say at your hearing.