651 Overcome All Odds with Amy Purdy

“WE’RE GOING TO FALL CONSTANTLY. WHAT KEEPS YOU YOUNG?” We all go through struggles in life, and it’s so easy to get into a loop of self pity. Instead, find a way to focus on your future. Make goals for yourself, especially if you find yourself in a life changing event. Where do you want to be in six months? What accomplishment do you want to make in the next year? Life’s too short to dwell on the present, so look forward to the future. The importance of creating this sort of accountability really got me thinking about a past episode with one of the most inspirational people I had on the show: Amy Purdy. Amy is a Paralympian who lost both of her feet. It didn’t stop her from becoming a world class athlete and someone that even Oprah has called her hero. On this episode of 5 Minute Friday, Amy discusses how she was able to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles by shifting her mindset to one that is selfless. Learn all about how you can overcome the impossible, on Episode 651. In This Episode You Will Learn: Amy’s 3 Goals she gave herself (1:08) When Amy’s new journey began (2:06) Why she decided to keep training for the Paralympics (3:09) Plus much, much more Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  We have an incredible guest today. Her name is Amy Purdy, and man, this woman blows me away. I'm so inspired by this human being. She is a top-ranked female adaptive snowboarder in the U.S. and a three-time World Cup Paris snowboard gold medalist, and also the 2014 Paralympic bronze medalist. She had to amputate both of her legs below the knee when she was a young woman and overcame so many obstacles. Then later, she recently was on Dancing with the Stars and took runner-up after inspiring the nation by all of her incredible dance routines that she did. She also went on tour with Oprah, and Oprah calls her her hero. She is such an inspiring person, and man, this conversation, I did not want it to end.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I remember I gave myself kind of three goals as I was going into the, like, literally as they were wheeling me from my room into the surgical room. I gave myself three goals, and I think I did this because I needed to feel some kind of control.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  You know, and I knew that, well, one of those goals was that I was going to snowboard that year. And I guess I, now I realize I'm just that type of person where I'm like, I throw myself into things. Like, I'm going to get in shape, and I'm gonna do it every single day until I'm there. I have 30 days to get in shape, where, you know, for that, it was like, I'm snowboarding, but I'm snowboarding this year.

• 1:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  And then I knew that when I figured it out, or the other goal is when I do figure it out, I want to somehow help other people. Let them know that it's going to be okay, but I first have to figure that out, you know, myself.

• 1:49Lewis Howes?

  Figure out yourself, how to be okay with it, yeah.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, the idea there is just that I needed something to feel in control of and to get me through that experience, something to look forward to. Like, I said I would do this. I said I would snowboard this year, so I'm going to do that. So I, yeah, I was wheeled in. They amputated my legs above the ankles. Then that was when a whole new, I stepped into a whole new life and journey. I was so grateful because of everybody who supported me, everything that we went through, to be able to be there, represent anybody with a disability or anybody who...

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Had an adversity and didn't think that they could do something, you know, powerful with their lives to be able to to be there and kind of represent that. And yeah, I mean, and then just knowing that all your hard work paid off. There was a little bit of a relief, right? It was like, thank God, like, thank God, I actually brought medal home because I really had my heart set on it, you know? That's what your whole couple of years leading up is just bringing home a medal. Like, every minute that I didn't work out, I knew somebody else was working out harder than me and he needed to be ahead of the game. And so it's, it takes all of you.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Congrats on getting the bronze. It's amazing.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Thank you. I think my reason for going back and training again for the next Paralympic team is different than it was before.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Like, this time, it's not about me.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  It's not about for you to win something or achieve something. It's to make a bigger impact.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Inspire, right?

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And who, you know, that day was so rough for me because I didn't win and I was struggling and, you know, and I realized, but it's not about that. Like, I'm out here and I'm doing it and I'm figuring it out. And that's what it's about. It's about that journey. You know, it's not like, okay, we're gonna fail constantly. So what keeps you going? You know, it can't be about the medals.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  That's great.