336 Amy Purdy: Turn Life's Tragedy Into Triumph

"There's endless possibilities if you're willing to work for it." - Amy Purdy If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video and more at http://lewishowes.com/336 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 episode number 336 with Amy Purdy.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  About a week from today, I'll be going on a journey to Argentina, Buenos Aires, actually, to compete with the USA Men's National Handball Team in the Pan American Championships. And I'm so fired up because many years ago, I had a dream to go to the Olympics and represent the United States of America in a sport of team handball. And we didn't qualify this year, but this will be my third Pan American Championships. So I am so fired up. And make sure to follow over on social media, @lewishowes pretty much everywhere. And I'll be on Snapchat, Lewis underscore Howes, kind of documenting the journey of all my teammates and heading down from the US to Buenos Aires and the seven games that we'll be competing in against

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  a couple of Olympic teams in all the other countries from North and South America. So I'm so jazzed up and I'm so excited. Now, 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 US 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

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  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 didn't Not wanted to end. Some of the things we covered were at the 1402 minute mark. What's survival mode really feels like when you are facing death? Also in 1605 mark, Amy's near death vision when she was in her coma. And she had this moment where she was called to call it in essentially to end her life or to come back into the real world. And what a crazy story there. Also, the three goals she set for herself going into her amputation surgery at the 28 30 minute mark.

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  And so much more that we covered about overcoming obstacles, overcoming fears and creating a powerful vision for yourself in the future. I am so excited about this one. If you guys enjoyed this one, then make sure to share the love. Say hi to Amy. Check out all of her information. She's also an author, got a great book out. Check out the show notes with all the links and resources in the full video interview that we talk about at lewishouse.com/336. Make sure to click on the share button if you're listening on your podcast app right now. Or just post it over on social media with your friends so they can listen or follow along. Again, lewishouse.com/336. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Amy Purdy.

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to School Greatest Podcast. Very excited about our guest today. Her name is Amy Purdy. Good to see you. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  I've been trying to get you on for like three years now. And we made it happen. Thanks to my persistence and Julianne Huff making the introduction and

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:47Lewis Howes?

  All these other things. So I'm glad you're here and you've been traveling a lot and you've got a lot going on. And I told you a story just before we started on camera. Amy stole $25,000. She ripped it from my wallet. She took it from my heart. And I was to tell the story, I was, you know, I do speaking, just like you do a lot of speaking. It's part of your, your business, your brand. And This this conference asked me to speak and they're like, it's down to you and one other person. And then they didn't give it to me. They gave it. And I was like, who is it? And they're like, Amy Purdy. I was like, ah, it's tough to it's tough to beat her up. Yeah, it's all good.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Well, that makes me that I'm actually honored to know. Well, this sounds bad, but they chose me over you because you're so amazing, though. You know, like, it was between the two of us.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  It's all good. There's a world of abundance. There's many speaking opportunities. I'm not worried if we miss one each.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  But you know, that is kind of funny. You can put a dollar sign on it. You stole $25,000 from me.

• 4:45Lewis Howes?

  It's all good. Yeah. One day, we'll be speaking on the same stage.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'd be amazing. Let's do it.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  We'll make it happen. For those that don't know about your story, you have an incredible story. And I want to dive into it. But Oprah essentially said you're like the most inspiring person in the world.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  Which is pretty cool, right? I don't know if that's the exact quote, but it's something like that. I have it down in summary. She's like, the person I look up to, someone you're inspired by for her. Which is pretty cool.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  It's pretty surreal.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  With all the people that she meets and connects with, like, you're her inspiration.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  You know, it's it's really, really surreal. Because she was my inspiration.

• 5:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  You know, going through everything that I went through with losing my legs and, you know, we'll get into that a bit too, but just losing my legs and everything I went through. I mean, I spent a lot of down days recovering and watching Oprah and the people that she had on the show. And, you know, you think, oh, my gosh, if those people can get through what they went through, I can get through what I'm going through. And then to be sharing the stage with her and actually that the fact that Oprah knows who I am, has, you know, says my name and knows who I am. I mean, I just feel it's so surreal. And she's just incredible. I mean, you know, she's just a very real human, down to earth person, which I love even more. So.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Let's break it down for those that don't know your story. You were nineteen, you were a regular girl, right? Living in Vegas.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Vegas girl.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  Vegas?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:12Lewis Howes?

  Loved to snowboard. You had a regular life. Nothing like too crazy, nothing too bad, nothing too out of the world.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Exciting or you know.

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  Just like you were living your life.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  And then one day, what happened?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I which I have to back up real fast.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  You said I was a snowboarder in Vegas and people question that often, but I grew up skiing in Vegas because there's ski resorts outside of Vegas and my family skied. And then I fell in love with snowboarding when I was fifteen and just knew that it would be a part of my life forever.

• 6:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  And I actually, it kind of shaped what I did after high school. I went to Salt Lake City to become a massage therapist because my thought was I could travel the world and snowboard and have this job that would travel with me.

• 6:52Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  I could live in resort towns and, you know, on cruise ships and just see the world with this job. But also snowboard. And so I ended up going back to Vegas after massage school because I got a job out there. I was saving money to be able to travel and kind of do all that fun stuff. And that's when really my, you know, plans changed. I completely went on a detour. When I got sick with something called meningococcal meningitis and we have no idea how I got it. All we know is that they say twenty-five percent of the population carries it.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  And it's just a form of meningitis. So there's spinal meningitis, then there's bacterial meningitis. Spinal's not as deadly or bad as bacterial. Bacterial is really.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Bacterial?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  And bacterial is really deadly. We have, we really don't know how I got it. It's airborne. So I could have been in an elevator at work and somebody sneezed on me and my body just didn't fight it off. Because they say it lives on your nose and your mouth. And it's something we're in contact with all the time, but our immune systems know to fight off.

• 7:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And so, you know, otherwise everybody would be sick from it. And I just happened to be one of those people that for whatever reason, my immune system didn't fight it off. And within 24 hours of my first flu-like symptom, and it was just, you know, I just didn't feel good, had a slight fever, just thinking I had the flu. Within 24 hours of that, I was in the hospital on life support, given less than a 2% chance of living. And so fought for my life for, you know, weeks to months after that. And

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  In the hospital still for?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was in the hospital for about two and a half months.

• 8:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  The first

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  This is in Vegas?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  This is in Vegas. And I just, I honestly just entered the hospital feeling really sick and had no idea that I'd be, I mean, I was on my deathbed, like within 24 hours, I was absolutely fighting for my life. And put into an induced coma because they didn't know what I had at this point. So I entered the hospital, they had no idea what I had, except that I was in septic shock. All my organs were failing and hemorrhaging, everything but my heart and my brain. So all my other organs were hemorrhaging and not working. And so they put me on life support right away, told my parents I had less than a 2% chance of living.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  This is in 24 hours, right after, within those next day.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yes, within the next day. And, and then I was immediately put on, put into an induced coma because my body was completely shutting down. And that's how they try to kind of stabilize you a little bit.

• 9:31Lewis Howes?

  Calms you down a little bit.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:33Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't have to work as hard.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:35Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yep. And

• 9:37Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean? They just give you a drug? Or what do they do?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:39Lewis Howes?

  How do you go in and?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  They do. They give you some kind of, I forget what it's called, but they do, they give you some kind of thing in your IV. And I remember my, it was a really big deal.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  You just go to sleep?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. My, it was really hard for my parents, you can imagine, because, you know, they didn't know if they'd see me again. So this was like, I remember, I actually was awake when my dad signed the papers to like, Basically put me on life support.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  So you may not wake up.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  This is the only option essentially.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  You're gonna, you'll die if we don't do this.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, because I wasn't breathing, not that I wasn't breathing good. I was, um, I was gasping for air because my lungs had failed. So.

• 10:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Had collapsed. So, uh, I, I just remember, you know, gasping for air and, uh, and that my dad was signing this paperwork and everyone was crying and that was like my last memory.

• 10:31Lewis Howes?

  You're like, see you guys never. Oh, my gosh.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, but you know.

• 10:35Lewis Howes?

  Freaking out. Were you scared?

• 10:36Speaker 01

  You know what? There's always humor in tragedy.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  And I remember it feeling so surreal, like an outer body experience and thinking, you guys, aren't we taking this a little seriously? You know?

• 10:50Lewis Howes?

  You said this to everyone?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Even though I was, I didn't, but it was in, it was kind of in the back of my head, even though I was like, gasping for air and like, I'm dying, I'm dying. I'm, you know, but in the back of my mind, somehow there was this disconnect of like, everybody here thinks I'm going to die. And isn't that a little,

• 11:10Speaker 01

  I don't know, serious for the situation? There's something, I, I, and maybe it was like a separation of, um, of, you know, like you're, I don't know. It's like a survival thing.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Of not thinking that you think.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  You feel like it, right?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  You feel like you're dying, but then you're questioning, am I really dying? You know? So, um, yeah, it was, uh, so I remember that. And actually my feet were really, really cold because I had, um, septic shock. So you go into septic shock when your body pulls blood from your extremities to save your organs. And that's what was happening. So I was losing circulation to my hands, to my feet, to my nose, my ears and my chin.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  Like tingly feeling or like numbing?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I had no feeling, freezing cold and purple.

• 11:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Like just literally overnight. Like it happened really, really fast.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  So, um, but my feet hurt so bad. So right before they put me into this induced coma, I asked my dad or I like demanded to see my feet because I remember saying, my feet hurt so bad. Um, can I see what's going on? And my dad was like, your feet are the least of our worries here. But I, I demanded to see my feet. And so my dad pulled the sheets back and my feet were literally purple.

• 12:25Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 12:27Lewis Howes?

  Now, why do they hurt?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. They were losing all circulation. And then I, I went into the induced coma. And so that's my very last memory before.

• 12:36Lewis Howes?

  I'm surprised you couldn't even remember that.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  You know, I remember so much of that time. You know, you would think that you would kind of black it out because it's a traumatic time. I remember so many details. It's really interesting. So, yeah, I ended up in that induced coma for about two and a half weeks. And then you're kind of in and out, you know, like I was awake and then all of a sudden you kind of slip back into it. You're in and out for a little bit, per se, another like week or so. And then, um, but I still was on life support when I woke up. I still, um, because I was in kidney failure, my spleen had burst and was removed. Um, my, kind of everything was out of whack. And so I was still hooked up to machines when I awoke from the coma. I still

• 13:21Speaker 01

  had tubes down my throat because my lungs had collapsed and needed help breathing. And so I was awake during a period of time where I was hooked up to like a whole room of machines, but aware of what was going on.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  And, um, I, yeah, then I ultimately ended up losing both my legs below the knees, almost lost my hands. And, uh, that was from the septic shock. So they did everything they could to try to bring me out of that septic shock to try to get more circulation to my feet because that's just a natural, it's pretty amazing. It's a natural response to your body trying to save itself is your organs are failing. So let's pull blood from your extremities to save your organs.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  And that's just the body's natural response, which is pretty amazing. But because of that, I lost circulation to my, my legs and my hands.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  So when you woke up, uh, the first time, did you already lose your legs or?

• 14:13Speaker 01

  No. So I woke up and, um, my feet at this point were the, the bottoms of my feet were black. I mean, like, and my toes, like, kind of mummy.

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  It's like, it's like, it's like, snowboarding.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  I know. But to the extreme. But yeah, I mean, like frostbite, really like you just, I mean, Yeah, there the balls of my feet or the the soles of my feet.

• 14:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  And my toes had just, I mean, zero circulation. The tops of my feet, they were dead. Absolutely. The the tops of my feet were purple ish and you know, they were. At that point, it actually wasn't. It was um really weird. It's painful before. You know, when I first entered the hospital, but when I woke up from the coma, it wasn't painful. It was just um confining. I just wanted to move my toes. I wanted to like feel the air between my toes and just felt like. You know, like I couldn't, I could, I could kind of move my feet. I could kind of move my toes, but I was every day losing the ability to do that.

• 15:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Um, and so then I, it was a couple of weeks after I woke up from that coma. Uh, first of all, they tried to save my feet. It was pretty much my feet. It's above the ankle, about two inches is where I was affected. And so they tried to save, I always say my legs because now I'm in actual prosthetic legs, but. They, they wanted to bring me to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to try to infuse my tissues with oxygen, but I was too unstable. Um, they couldn't move me from my hospital bed or anything. And and then they would, you know, do, they'd bring in physical therapists and massage and rub creams that are really bad for you, but that like.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Praying blood flow. Um, they were doing everything they could and ultimately just. They knew that if they didn't amputate, if they didn't amputate my feet, that.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  It would spread.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  It would spread. Yes, because it turns into gangrene, basically. And gangrene can spread really, really fast within minutes to hours. It's just suddenly, once it hits, you're kind of trying to, you're amputating higher and higher. So I have to say, though, I got lucky. I know a lot of people who either died from meningococcal meningitis um or survived it. But lost their legs to their hips, you know, their arms and their legs. And it's because that gangrene set in really fast for them. I, for whatever reason, had five weeks where it didn't set in. And so that was, they were, you know, doing everything they could, but then they knew by blood tests that it was.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  About ready to, so I I just remember the doctor coming in and saying, we have to do this tomorrow. We have to amputate your legs tomorrow.

• 16:56Lewis Howes?

  They told you then. Wow.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and. You know, it's amazing where the strength comes from because I didn't cry. I just said, okay, do it. Like, do what you have to do so I can get out of here and move on with my life.

• 17:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  I was just ready. You know, there's certain things that you, there's no debate. Like, this is what has to happen to survive, so let's make, let's do it.

• 17:20Lewis Howes?

  Cut my legs off. Oh my gosh. Can I imagine what that'd be like?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  You can't, and I could have never imagined.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  But when you're in that moment and the pain, you're surviving for your life.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  And there wasn't a lot of pain, but there was survival. I mean, I was absolutely in survival.

• 17:36Lewis Howes?

  You go in a different mode, probably. Your whole mind, your everything. Interesting. Wow.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Here, I'm an emotional person just by nature. Like, I, I mean, I could look at a sunset and cry.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  You said you looked at the photo of you with the American flag in your, yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And I want to cry. So you would think that I would be the biggest baby in that situation, but somehow I was probably stronger than, you know, the majority of my family, even. They were the ones who were so heartbroken and crying. And I was kind of like, do what you gotta do so I can move on with my life. Everything's gonna be fine. I'll figure it out.

• 18:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  I just had that, some kind of faith and confidence that that was going to be the case. But, you know, it's weird. You just, survival mode is an interesting thing. You cut the emotion out of it. That's what it is. You know, you're not like, oh, you know, it's sad.

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  Crying about your legs, like, I gotta move on.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're like, I gotta do whatever I have to do in this moment to survive and get through the day.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if you were probably like in the wilderness and for a month or whatever, you would, whatever, eat a bunny rabbit if you had to. You would just be like, oh, I gotta eat it. I can't cook it, or, you know, whatever.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  And you probably have a period of time of the emotional, like, because it's the attachment of things.

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  Like, I have to survive.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. Then you go into like survival, like beast mode and that's.

• 18:57Lewis Howes?

  Rip a salmon for the, ah, whatever it's like.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Bear Grylls. Um, crazy. And I, and I read somewhere that you kind of had like a moment when you were either in your coma, where you like saw, you were either gonna go to like death or come back to life. Was there like a thing you saw people? There was three people or something?

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so, you know, I really don't tell this story very much.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  I've never met anyone who had, has had a story like this.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  Who they've like seen the light essentially.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Had a near death experience. Yeah.

• 19:27Lewis Howes?

  So I'm interested.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  It shaped my life. So that's why it's, it's so important for me. So when I was, when I was in the coma that I was in and I was, it was that first week, which was the most critical when I was in the hospital. So it was really kind of touch and go as far as, I was hooked up to all these machines and this is just, you know, I heard this from my nurses, doctors and parents because I was out of it obviously, but,

• 19:54Speaker 01

  my blood pressure would crash and my heart rate would shoot up. It was 244 beats per minute and I actually stayed that way for about a week and a half. Just fluttering in my chest. And for one, they said if I wasn't as young as I was or as strong as I was, because I was working out a lot at that time, that my heart probably wouldn't have been able to sustain that. But, um, so my, my blood pressure would crash, my heart rate would go up. Then my heart rate would crash, my blood pressure would go up. And it was just this constant, um, all day for, you know, a couple of days there of just, being on the edge. They, they think that I was going, bring my whole family in, everybody would start praying. All of a sudden I'd come back. Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  There was a lot of that, that happened. And then they had to come in with the chest shockers and shock my heart back into the rhythm. And so the first few days, for my family was just, I mean, every, yeah, every five minutes was a kind of a different story for those few days. And so at the same time, um, apparently my stomach started to get kind of bigger and, um, and they were taking my blood and realizing that my red blood count was low. So they realized I was internally bleeding. And here I was so unstable as it was, I was hooked up to all these machines. They couldn't even, I, I actually remember this at one point.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  For some reason, I remember this. I remember like, you know, when you, okay, you know, when you're falling asleep and you you dream that you fell off a cliff or something, you jump.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  You wake up.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember having a moment like that and my finger twitching and hearing all the machines in the room go off and them slamming my hand down because just that motion made my whole body go out of whack. So that's why they had me in that induced coma was to kind of paralyze me to not move at all. But I was that unstable and then they had to move me into CAT scan to see what was going on. And I guess it took an entire day and like eight doctors to move me from the hospital bed to the CAT scan bed because they had to move just finger, like fingertip by fingertip without, you know, disrupting my

• 22:06Speaker 01

  heart aid and all that stuff. And so, once they got me to CAT scan, they found out that my spleen was about ready to burst. It was 10 times its normal size. And so they rushed me immediately into into surgery. And I mean, at that point, my parents and my family thought, you know, that well, they, I mean, it was a good, I was absolutely going to die if I didn't do the surgery. But there was a huge chance I was going to die by doing the surgery because I was so unstable as it was.

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Um.

• 22:35Lewis Howes?

  The amputee or?

• 22:36Speaker 01

  That's for my spleen.

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 22:39Lewis Howes?

  The first surgery.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Yes, this is the first surgery, first of many. Yeah. So my spleen was 10 times its normal size and.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  And bleeding internally.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  And bleeding internally. So.

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  It's a pain hearing this.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  I know. I know. Yeah. If you have any kind of weird like needle, medical blood, you know, phobias, then it's probably not the story to listen to. But, um, but anyways, so I was rushed into emergency surgery so they could remove my spleen. And I remember being in that surgery. So even though I was in a coma, I remember being in that surgery. And I remember actually looking up, even though my eyes were taped shut and everything. I remember it was, it was a bit of an outer body experience because I remember looking up, seeing the doctor, hearing what the doctors and the nurses were talking about. I remember the doctor, his name is Dr. Abby. I write about him quite a bit in my book because he's just a really important part of my life. But I remember Dr. Abby whispering in my

• 23:35Speaker 01

  ear. And he said, Amy, whatever it is you believe and think about that now.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  This makes me wanna cry. I don't talk about this very much, but uh so he said, think about that now, whatever religion, whatever it is you believe in, hang on to that right now.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  Before you're going under?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  And I remember, well, I was under, I was already under, I was in a coma.

• 23:57Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  This was kind of an outer body thing. This was like a beginning of this near death experience thing. So I remember him whispering that to me, you know, he's not necessarily aware that I'm aware that he was saying that, but I remember him saying that. And I remember thinking, so he said, everything, you know, whatever it is you think, whatever it is you believe in, think about that right now. And I remember just the first thing that popped to my head is I thought, I believe in love. I believe in love. And I was raised, it's kind of interesting. I was raised kind of, um, kind of Mormon, because my grandparents were Mormon. And so I'd go to church with them every other Sunday, but I wasn't really raised in a Mormon household. But I knew a bit of that religion. But I also knew that

• 24:41Speaker 01

  my friends had different religions and I never, um, I never felt religious, but I always felt spiritual. And, um, and it's just interesting in that moment, when I was asked, what is it you believe in? Like, I believe in love. You know, I think love is the creator of everything and, and what it boils down to in the end. And so I thought of that. And then all of a sudden, um, so my heart was like beating out of my chest and I could feel it. I could feel it fluttering in my chest. And I thought I was actually in open heart surgery because I remember feeling the doctor with no pain, but I remember the pressure, feeling him cut me open from my sternum down to my belly button.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  Oh, gosh.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  But there was no pain. It was just like I could feel the skin and everything.

• 25:31Lewis Howes?

  The pressure, kind of like the tension or whatever.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  The tension. And, um, I thought I was in heart surgery because my aunt had, has the same scar and she had heart surgery when she was young. And I could feel my heart beating in my chest. And I was thinking, okay, he's here to fix my heart. But, um, but anyways, as my heart was beating, it was beating faster and faster and faster. And I just, I felt like I was hanging on by my fingertips, just on a cliff. And, you know, every time my heart. Hit a beat. I felt like I was going closer and closer to the edge. I mean, I was absolutely hanging on for dear life. And then all of a sudden, I remember feeling my last heartbeat. And it was incredibly powerful and just knocked the breath out of me.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  And suddenly, I was in this space and in this dark space. And I saw a light. It wasn't a bright light. It was kind of a dimmed green haze. But there was just enough of a light to see that there were three silhouettes. And I didn't recognize these silhouettes. They're very basic. You know, there wasn't any details. Except I could see their hands going like this, like in a, in a kind of come here motion. And they were saying to me, you can come with us or you can stay.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  And I remember getting so frustrated and thinking, I haven't lived my life yet. I haven't fallen in love yet. I haven't traveled the world yet. I haven't. Like, I love life. I haven't done all these things that I always thought that I would do. And I remember getting just so frustrated and screaming, no, like every cell in my body. I was like, I'm not going anywhere. And right then, this really bright light said, this, I can say, was the brightest white light I've ever seen, was sitting over my right shoulder. And it was basically saying, kind of like, okay, you chose to stay.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  And, you know, your life is going to be challenging, but there's, there's, basically, there's, I'm putting this in my own words, but, because I can't remember exactly the words. But basically, there's going to be mountain tops and valleys. You know, there's going to be constant up and downs. But just know that it will all make sense in the end. And that's so clear to me, that it will all make sense in the end. And so when I woke up from the coma that I was in, that was my first thought of what I had gone through. And I think that faith of whatever it is, just knowing that it all, no matter how challenging life gets, no matter what our circumstances are,

• 28:14Speaker 01

  that it is all going to make sense in the end, that is what helped to get me through the toughest days of my life.

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be right now if this didn't happen to you or for you?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  You know, exactly. I love that. Um, I, I don't know because I certainly didn't know how, you know, like passionate or strong or motivated I was. I don't know if that all just engaged after I went through everything or if it was always kind of in, I know it was always in me. It's just bringing it out. But, um, I, I mean, I wanted to be a massage therapist, travel the world. I'll tell you what, I wanted to, I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to snowboard and now that is exactly what I'm doing, just in a completely different way than I ever expected.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  Without the massage, yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now I get massages, which is even better, actually. But, um, but you know, I, I think we all want to make a difference in the world somehow. Like we all have a drive to actually just to do something and live a fulfilling life and hopefully positively affect people.

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  And now I'm doing that because of what I went through.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  You know, I, um, I used to want to move to LA out here because I thought I want to act and I want to do all this stuff. But I think what I was craving was I just, I just wanted to do something and I guess it's, I think some of it is being recognized for something. You know, I think maybe everybody feels that. And when I was younger, I used to think it's, oh, be on TV.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  And now I realize, no, it's actually connecting with people. Like that's what, that's what I, I want. You're sharing this love and encouragement and positivity and whatever that energy is between people. That's, I think, something that we all want, maybe without knowing it.

• 30:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  And once you are able to do that, like we're able to do through speaking, um, you're like, that's what it is. So fulfilling.

• 30:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So, okay. So after you had that experience and then you had to, you know, remove your legs, essentially cut a part of your legs. Is it above the knee, below the knee?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Below the knee. It's right above the ankles.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Above the ankles. Is that better if it's below the knee? Cause then you have the joint to be able to still use.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  If it was above the knee, it'd be much harder?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Way harder.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yes. Below the knee is a blessing.

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's good.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  And so when you. This happens and you wake up and they're not there. What are you thinking?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so then I I remember the day the doctor came in and said, if we don't, it basically said, if we don't amputate here and he pointed, pointed to my ankles. Then he said, we'll have to amputate up here next week. And he pointed to my knees. So he was like, we, you know, we have to do this. And so I remember being wheeled into the surgical room.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my God.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  I know. And it's so crazy because how do you wrap your head around?

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  And.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's about to happen. You're not going to be there.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yep. And you have no idea what your life is going to be like, you know, I actually visualize the only amputees I had ever seen were like, you know, and it's sad, were Vietnam vets on the corner in a wheelchair with a sign. And I thought that's the only vision I have in my head of what life is like as a leg amputee. And I was getting ready to have that happen to me. But I remember I gave myself, 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.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  You know, and I knew that, well, one of those goals was that I was going to snowboard that year. And.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  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 going to do it every single day until I'm there. I have 30 days to get in shape or, you know, for that, it was like, I'm snowboarding, but I'm snowboarding this year.

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  And then I knew that when I figured it out, or I, 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.

• 32:39Lewis Howes?

  You have to figure it yourself. How to be okay with it, yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then the third goal, you know, it's funny, all of a sudden I'm spacing the third goal as I'm sitting here. So it was, yeah, well, you'll have to read my book and you'll see.

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  We'll see it in there, yeah, yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  But 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. And so I, yeah, I was wheeled in, they amputated my legs above the ankles. And, and then that was when a whole new, I stepped into a whole new life and journey.

• 33:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So, did you snowboard then that year?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  I did. I snowboarded. So I snowboarded about, I'd say, seven months after I lost my legs.

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  That was about four months after I got my prosthetics. And it wasn't comfortable. There was, it was definitely, you know, my ankles didn't move because your ankles can move so much. You know, if you can imagine, you keep your feet flat and you can bend your knees to the floor, right? That's how you jump, or that's how you, you know, get in an athletic stance. But with prosthetic legs, our ankles don't bend. I mean, even really the best prosthetics, your ankles bend very, very little. Because if you have too much motion, then you're kind of all over the place. You can't control it. So my ankles were very stiff. And I actually remember the day that I tried to snowboard

• 34:12Speaker 01

  again, I went up with my sister and, you know, just put my normal gear on, everything. I remember everything felt so weird trying to just even walk in the snow and not feel my feet. You know, I was kind of slipping around. And then as we were on the chairlift going up, I think that's when it really hit me, kind of the fear of what if I can't do this? That's when it hit me. Because the whole time, that seven months, I kept thinking, I'm gonna snowboard, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna get my legs, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna learn to snowboard, whatever I need to do to snowboard. But then all of a sudden, that moment was there.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, what if I can't? And so that was kind of a frightening chairlift ride to the top. But when I got off the lift, I was able to kind of cruise on my board, you know, you stop, you buckle in. So all that went okay. Then I got up and I was just able to kind of point my board and go straight. You know, felt completely different, couldn't feel my feet at all. And then I remember I carved on my heel edge and everything felt okay. And then I went to carve on my toe edge. And that's when I realized, oh, my gosh, my ankles don't bend, I can't really get to my toes. But I ended up hitting this

• 35:28Speaker 01

  bump. And my, my beanie went one way, my goggles went the other way. And I mean, I fell and my legs, well, my legs still attached to my snowboard went flying down the mountain.

• 35:41Lewis Howes?

  No way. Oh, my gosh.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  I kind of broke into pieces. And meanwhile, you know, I'm sitting at the top of the mountain, totally embarrassed, just like had no idea that, you know, I would worry about my legs actually coming off. Yeah. And my friend hiked down the mountain and picked my legs up, attached the snowboard and hiked them back up. And what's funny is somebody on the chairlift screamed, because, you know, I'm sure it was.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  No, it was like, oh, my gosh, she broke her legs off.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was like, oh, my God. And I'm sure she racked up years of therapy bills. You know, after that, she probably went home and was like, I am never learning to ski and snowboard again, because I saw a girl break into millions of pieces. And it's funny because we, we always say with skiers, if a skier falls, we usually call it a yard cell, because their skis come off, and then their, you know, beanie comes off and their poles, yeah, they have all this stuff around them. And so this was kind of the ultimate yard cell. Because I had all that around me.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  Your body came off too.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  And feet flying down the mountain.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  So I was

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  Twenty years old this time, right?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. And I was really discouraged. I was also, I was still quite sick. I mean, I was eighty three pounds when I left the hospital. I still, at that point, was probably under a hundred pounds and I hooked up to dialysis machines every night because my kidneys were in full kidney failure. So I was still quite weak, but I felt at least strong enough to get up and try to snowboard. And but it really, you know, that motivated me. I was definitely discouraged when that happened, when my legs didn't move the way I need them to, when they came off. But I remember thinking, okay, so if I can find a way to get my ankles to move the way they need to, if I can find a way to keep these legs attached to me, then

• 37:33Speaker 01

  I can do this. You know, it's just about kind of minimizing the overall emotion of, oh, my God, I just can't to wait a second. These are very tangible things.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  One step at a time.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, yeah, so I ended up going, going home from there and, and kind of knowing what I needed to do. And I went on this mission to figure out what kind of feet to use for snowboarding.

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  And came to find out that, that there were no snowboard feet, feet out there. You know, it's not something that you can just go to a shop and buy a snowboard.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  This was what, like, how many years ago was this?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Gosh, this was like fourteen years ago, probably actually longer. This was sixteen years ago.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's already

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  So probably wasn't as advanced in prosthetics then either, right?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  I'm still, I'm in the exact same leg setup I was in sixteen years ago.

• 38:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:25Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I mean, even though there are, there have been advancements for sure with the military and you see a lot of these bionic prosthetics coming out. I mean, first of all, so far, there's really, there's nothing that mimics the human dynamic.

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's tough.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Body, you know, and there's a lot of research that goes into arm prosthetics because, you know, people who lose their hands, you do so much with your hands that they are putting a lot of research into, you know, people being able to even feel, you know, hot and cold with their fingertips or hold a baby or you actually have some kind of feeling there. With leg prosthetics, there's, there actually has been a lot of advancements if you're above the knee. Just in the last probably 10 years, they developed computerized knees.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  That think like a thousand times a second and know what movement you're going to do and want to do. So that's amazing. But when you're below the knee, it's pretty basic. I mean, there, there is some computerized ankles out there. I've tried one. I was in, I went to MIT and tried these awesome biomechanical ankles.

• 39:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  And I will say certain things were amazing that I missed and I didn't realize that I missed. Like, for example, when you're sitting, say you're sitting and your legs are crossed. Normally your foot kind of drops a little bit, right? Like, you can kind of, you don't point your toe, but it just kind of drops. But with prosthetics, I mean, your foot's just stuck. Like I'm in a 90 degree angle. It's the same shape all the time.

• 39:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  And I never realized.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  It kind of looks like it's dropped a little bit, almost.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Well, I'm in a high heel.

• 40:02Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's the shoe that makes it, yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  I have three inches heels on today, so it looks that way.

• 40:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  But you know, it's not, it's not going to drop anymore. And if I was in tennis shoes, then it's really at a 90 degree.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, okay, that's true.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  And there's little things like that that do bother you. And you realize, you know, as a girl, as a woman, like, there's feminine little things like that. Like you, you know, you point your toes that all of a sudden I couldn't do, do. But when I tried these amazing computerized ankles on, it did that. It's like, yeah, automatically it knows your legs are crossed, and so it drops. Or walking, just walking upstairs, if you can imagine, you know, you roll off the balls of your foot. That's a dynamic motion. Well, prosthetics don't do that. No, it's like I'm in ski boots all the time. Everything is just set. So I'm really just like stepping in the middle of my foot, you know, the whole time. But with those.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Computerized ankles, it actually pushes off the ball of the foot and it's like you get up the stairs so fast.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  Why don't you use those?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Because they made me like six feet tall. Uh, yeah, they made me way too tall because there was, they haven't figured out how to shrink the computer down to be for somebody like me.

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  They were just too tall and made me too tall. And I will say this too, they were fun, but there's something about, um, I like being able to control my feet instead of my feet controlling me. And so actually now when I snowboard, I actually snowboard in quite, um, I don't want to say basic feet. I, I kind of created these feet to snowboard in to move the way I need them to. But they're, they're quite dead. They're not like shocks and springs and like super high tech.

• 41:45Lewis Howes?

  Use your knees and your, everything else is shock and, and spring, right?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Well, the thing is though, so even though I have my knees, if your ankles don't bend, your knees don't bend. Because try, like if you were to stand up right now, you know, yeah, like it kind of, it all works together. Um, so even though I have my knees, they're, the motion's limited because my ankle motion is limited. But I, I tried, actually the next time I snowboarded, I went up with these feet that had shocks and springs. They're these high athletic feet. And I bounced all over the place, you know, I'd hit chatter and I'd, you know, it bounced all around. Yeah. And I thought, okay, it's actually better to go back to the basic feet so that I can control them.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  And I find that just with day to day, um, walking and, and other activities, I, I kind of like being in control and making them do what I want them to do. Instead of all of a sudden them getting a glitch and like, okay, we're running. I guess we're running.

• 42:42Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  But.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  So when did you decide that, okay, uh, maybe I can go to the Olympics, the Paralympics and compete? When, when did that dream happen?

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Funny that it didn't happen until after I lost my legs. You know, I never had, I never had a dream to go to the Olympics and I think part of it is because snowboarding wasn't an Olympic sport when I first started doing it. It didn't become an Olympic sport until, really until around the time that I lost my legs. And I think so after I lost my legs, I was realized, or I was aware that snowboarding was in the Paralympic, or it was, I can't talk, but snowboarding was in the Olympic Games. And once I realized that I could do it, I thought, well, why isn't snowboarding in the Paralympic Games?

• 43:28Speaker 02

  It wasn't yet.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  No. And so my now husband, but he was my boyfriend at the time, Daniel, we started a nonprofit organization called Adaptive Action Sports. We get youth, young adults and wounded vets, all with permanent physical disabilities into action sports. So, snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, we even do rally car racing, motocross.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  All types of, you know, the action sports that I always loved. We kind of just figured out, you know, I can do all of these things, so why aren't more people doing these things? Yet there were a lot of people, a lot of amputees that were skiing and swimming, doing more classic sports. So, we wanted to bring these opportunities to people with disabilities so they can do these other types of sports. And part of what we had a goal of was trying to get snowboarding into the Paralympic Games. And so we kind of went on this mission, teaching snowboard lessons to people who have, you know, never snowboarded before, but then also trying to find the snowboarders out there.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Over the years, I had created kind of this, not that I created it, but you know, you kind of attract people around you. I had this like community of people who all snowboarded.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  And had prosthetics. And everybody was riding amazing, but individually in their own like little mountain town, or in Canada, there would be somebody with a prosthetic who snowboarded, so. We all started coming together and hitting up every single snowboard competition with our organization Adaptive Action Sports, we would create adaptive divisions to snowboard competitions. USA is a national snowboard competition. We created an adaptive division with that. The ESPN X Games, we created an adaptive skateboard division.

• 45:12Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  And then we did an adaptive snowboard division to the ESPN Winter X Games, which we still run, the board across. And so we started just-

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  You guys, your organization runs it?

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my husband runs that.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  And, and so we started, you know, helping to create this community of people who rode incredibly well and wanted to see it in the games. I mean, it's amazing, for years on our own dollar with literally barely any money in our pocket, we'd fly to New Zealand and compete out there and fly to Europe and compete out there. And we had zero sponsors, no idea if this would ever be a Paralympic sport.

• 45:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  There was kind of a core group of probably maybe 20 of us that made it happen. And we were successful ultimately in getting snowboarding. Our first games was the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  And so that's the one you competed in?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:08Lewis Howes?

  And you got a bronze medal?

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  What was the event? What was-

• 46:10Speaker 01

  It's board across.

• 46:12Lewis Howes?

  Board across. What was it, half pipe? It wasn't like you're doing tricks and-

• 46:15Speaker 01

  No, um, no, I used to love to do that kind of stuff when I had legs. It's definitely a lot more complicated now.

• 46:21Lewis Howes?

  That's hardcore, yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  But I'll tell you, even, I mean, board across is one of the most complicated sports I probably any, an amputee could ever do.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Because you need to be so dynamic.

• 46:31Lewis Howes?

  You need your ankles.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  You need ankles. You need ankles for multiple reasons because, so, board across, you know, it's almost like, it's almost like motocross, but down snow because there's four to six people who come out of the start gate at the same time. You immediately go over these jumps as separation pictures.

• 46:49Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's tough.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you're around berms and more jumps and berms and more jumps and you're just weeding each other out. You know, whoever crosses the finish line first wins, moves on to the next round.

• 47:00Lewis Howes?

  Nice round, yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  And it's an all-day kind of thing of competing against each other until you get the winner. And I'm the only double-leg amputee competitive snowboarder worldwide right now at that level. There's some, um, this year, we, we actually met a couple new double leg amputee guys who are starting to train and hopefully get, you know, work their way up. But for all these years, it's just been me with two prosthetic legs. And, um, so I race against girls who have their legs or who have one prosthetic leg. And, you know, just

• 47:31Lewis Howes?

  They're missing an arm, some are missing armor.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  They have their own category. So now if you're an arm, if you're kind of an upper limb impairment, you're in one category. If you're a lower limb impairment, you're in another category.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  Mostly it's just one limb.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Mostly it's one limb. Very few people are double and actually have figured out their equipment and had the drive to actually like, you know, make it to the point where you can compete.

• 47:56Lewis Howes?

  This was like 12 years of training for you.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Yes. And just constant innovation, constant creativity to try to figure out how to get my feet to do the, to move the way I want them to move. And to be honest, they're still not there. Um, they're not there. I mean, the other girls, you know, they, everybody is such incredible athletes, training so hard and also have at least one good leg to really do all the dynamic stuff. And for me, I rely 100% on the mechanics of these feet and they just, they're very limited compared to what the human foot can do. So I do realize though, that that's what my drive is.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  My drive is to figure it out. It's frustrating, but it's also rewarding, especially when I meet, say, other young double leg amputees who say, oh my God, I want to go to the Paralympics for snowboarding. Yeah.

• 48:53Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. What was it like the final round? Cause you made it to the championship race, right?

• 48:57Speaker 01

  To the, yes.

• 48:58Lewis Howes?

  So the final race to essentially like the medal race.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:03Lewis Howes?

  What was that? How many girls are in that final?

• 49:06Speaker 01

  So for us, um, since that was the first Paralympics, it was a much smaller field.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Um, our first snowboard event in the Paralympics, it was a much smaller field. And actually, we didn't do the typical four by four or

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  It was more timed or?

• 49:23Speaker 01

  It's, it was timed. And the reason they

• 49:24Lewis Howes?

  If you hit each other, it's hard to get up, it's hard to, whatever, right?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Well, they just, uh, they just, there was a kind of a safety thing that they just didn't know yet. Uh, we had trained quite a while, uh, for two years doing time trials. They just decided, let's just do the time trials and make it go off of that instead of doing head to head.

• 49:43Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Because they couldn't quite figure out the classifications, you know? I'm a double leg amputee and then I'm competing against an above the knee amputee. And then there's a girl with legs who maybe has, you know, a bit of, um,

• 49:57Speaker 01

  MS or something, impairment in there. So they just decided, let's just do time runs and whoever has the best time wins, you know, for second, third. Um, now though, going into the next games, it is side by side. It's actually really, really exciting and crazy that way. But, um, but yeah, just, just for one, just being, you know, being in Russia, being at the Olympics, being in the Olympic Village is, it makes me emotional because it's just so cool, you know? And, and then, gosh, I mean, just the day of the race, it's almost like your whole life sets you up to that moment, you know? I wouldn't have been there if I didn't lose my legs, you know?

• 50:40Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, I mean, it's, and we get a countdown, we're in the gates and, you know, you hear the guy go three, two, like racer's ready? You know, three, two, one, go. And I mean, those moments are some of the most intense moments. Cause once you pull out of that start gate as hard as you can.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh my God, my heart is like pounding just listening to this.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  It's a dream, you know? It's like, oh, it's been my dream as a kid and

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:03Lewis Howes?

  It's like I can only imagine how emotional it is.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to actually try to keep those emotions at bay.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Because.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  Focus on the goal. You've been working on this your whole life. Focus.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't mess it up right now. But yeah, I mean, you know, easily standing in those gates, you know, I thought of everything that happened in my life that led me there. All the people who are rooting for me, all the people who supported me. And I mean, we even had throughout the years, because we race in a dangerous sport, we even had major, major injuries with some of the athletes. We had one athlete who passed away in one of our races right before Sochi. So all of that, though, is what, you know, comes to you in the start gates. It's like everything it took to get there, you know? And then, but then, you know, you have to use that as power versus like broke down emotional.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and yeah, then pulled out the start gates and it was very challenging for us. We were in Sochi. The snow was very, very weird.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  Different.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like quicksand. It was really interesting. They'd spray the stuff on it to try to harden it up, but it would make it like glue. It was really weird.

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  So your time was slow compared to other places.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'd like dig your edge in and it would actually, you'd kind of

• 52:23Lewis Howes?

  Sink in.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Sink instead of cutting through, you know, you'd go slower. And so we had to be lighter on our edges and it was a whole different type of riding than we're used to. And yeah, and I ended up coming in third place and was absolutely, I mean, so grateful.

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  What was that like when they put the medal around your neck?

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  They don't play the national anthem unless you win, correct?

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Um, how did we do that? Let me think. I think we all, they did the national anthem.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  For each person, third, second, then first.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, when we did the award ceremony, they do an award ceremony or they do a flower ceremony right after the race on the snow. So they bring up the top three and give you flowers. And then I think they played our.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  Later that night is the medal or yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that night's the medal ceremony and that was emotional.

• 53:09Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:11Lewis Howes?

  Did you get the rings too? Tattooed?

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Um, no, I didn't. I haven't, but I know a lot of people who have.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I've kind of thought of it, but you know, I do have, I have the rings ring. I don't have it on me right now, but usually, you know, to have that Olympic ring, to be able to look down and see it is. Pretty, you know, it's just crazy. I mean, it's so cool. And so I was so grateful because of everybody who supported me, everything that we went through, you know, to be able to be there, represent anybody with a disability or anybody who, you know, had an adversity and didn't think that they could do something, you know, powerful with their lives, to be able to be there and kind of represent that. And,

• 53:57Speaker 01

  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. Thank God I actually brought metal 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 takes all of you.

• 54:25Lewis Howes?

  Congrats on getting the bronze. It's amazing.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 54:28Lewis Howes?

  Now, how did Dancing with the Stars come about then?

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was interesting. So, I'll tell you why. Everything happens for a reason. It really does. It's either that, or you make do with what you're given, and then it makes sense, right, in the end? But I, so that year leading up to the Paralympics, I actually got this random opportunity to do a movie with Samuel L. Jackson.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  Before the Paralympics. And you didn't really have a platform before, correct?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  No. Well, I had a TED Talk that I did in 2011.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  And apparently, my TED Talk is used by the TED organization to say, this is how you do a TED Talk.

• 55:09Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, yeah.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 55:10Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty cool.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I did that, I mean, when I first started speaking. And I guess going back to that quickly, I mean, that was the most challenging thing I've ever done at that time in my life. Did you do a TED Talk?

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  I've been asked to do many, but I'm waiting for the right time.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, you'll know.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  I've got the speech in mind, and I've been practicing, and I'm like,

• 55:30Speaker 01

  You're practicing, just waiting.

• 55:32Lewis Howes?

  I've been waiting.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  You know,

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  It's all about timing for me.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I kind of just jumped in.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  It's good.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Feet first, and made myself create the best talk that I could create at that time, you know? I put so much work into it because I knew that With a TED Talk, you could just get through it, that's fine. Or it can absolutely launch you into a whole different, you know, dimension of work and speaking and everything. And I remember, I loved TED, leading up to it. And so when I was asked, I remember I cried when I opened this email. And I said, oh, my God, I've been invited to speak at TED. And I had only spoke at very few places before that. But somehow, the flyer for one of my speeches ended up on one of the TED organizers' desks.

• 56:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  And from that flyer, I was invited to speak.

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  And I was given about three months. I worked harder than I've ever worked in my life.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Because I thought, you know, how do you, I was 30, so how do you, how do you round 30 years into an eight-minute talk?

• 56:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  And, and

• 56:41Lewis Howes?

  Which stories to tell, there's so many stories.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's so many. I mean, my talk started out like an hour and a half long.

• 56:48Lewis Howes?

  You're like, okay.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I wanted every story in there. But then, something that helped me is the theme. So it's always, I don't know about you, but it's always easier for me if a company or a group says, okay, our theme is living beyond limitations, or our theme is passion. Or I can wrap my head around that. But when people come and say, we just want to hear your story, that's a little bit harder for me. It's so general. I need to know, who are the people I'm speaking to? Like, what are they looking for? What are they struggling with? Like, what kind of, where can I wrap my ideas around?

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  And with TED, they gave me, they just said, beyond borders. That was the theme. And they had so many different speakers, you know, they had someone talk about actual physical borders, and someone talk about emotional borders. And for me, those borders were the limitations in my life. And I was able to start thinking of, okay, you know, how does that play a role in my life? And how, for me, those limitations are actually how I got where I'm at today.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Like, it's using those, you know? And for me, that's where my theme of kind of pushing off of those borders, pushing off of those limits came. And that talk went viral. You know, all that hard work. I mean, I didn't eat, sleep, anything for three months. And it all paid off, and it went viral. And, and Put me into a corporate speaking career. And so I had that going into the Paralympics and before doing Dancing with the Stars. And Dancing with the Stars, just it actually came up about two weeks before I went for to the Paralympics.

• 58:30Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. They, I'll tell you what, they called me in November, the Paralympics were in March, they called me in November and just said, are you interested? Do you like dancing and are you interested? And I said, well, I love dancing like at the club. I mean, I can go out and dance, but that doesn't mean that I can be a ballroom dancer. And that was it for our conversation and I kind of moved on. Um, and then about two weeks before we got the official invitation to be on the show and honestly, I was just like, sure, I mean, I, I, I really didn't watch the show. I, I knew about it, of course, but I, it's not like I religiously watched it. I had no idea what to expect. I honestly thought that I'd make it through like the first week. Well, I hoped to make it through the first week,

• 59:13Speaker 01

  but certainly did not go in with any crazy expectations. Um, had no idea what to expect at all and, um.

• 59:21Lewis Howes?

  You made it to the semis, right?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  I, I made it. So I came in second place. Yeah. Came in second place.

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  Last show.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  And that's all I could have asked for.

• 59:29Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  I'm telling you.

• 59:30Lewis Howes?

  Make it to the end.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  To be able to experience every moment of that show, I feel so blessed. I mean, yeah, of course, you know, you want, we're competitive and you want to, you know, you're getting that close, you want to win, but it wasn't about that. It really wasn't. It was just every week was a discovery, trying to figure out how, how do I do this? And how do we come up with moves that, that I can do and that work and that, you know, we didn't want it to look like I have prosthetic legs. I'd never wanted anyone to say, oh, she's good for a girl with prosthetics. You know, I want to be, if I'm in there competing, I want to be looked at as any other dancer who wants to do well. And so.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Derek and I did everything we could. We worked our butts off to, you know, to I guess make it as far as we did.

• 1:00:17Lewis Howes?

  He's a great choreographer and he's amazing.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  He's amazing. I just, seriously genius.

• 1:00:22Lewis Howes?

  He's intense too. He's like focused, committed.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Super intense. Yeah, super intense, but also hilarious at the same time.

• 1:00:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, he's good dude.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  He's got the funniest personality.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  He's good dude. I've had a chance to hang out with him a few times. Nice guy.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Lewis Howes?

  But I watched a couple of your guys' performances and they're just mind blowing, you know, and you guys, you guys had the judges in tears like every time. So it's like you created, you created an emotional connection to the heart of everyone. So it was really cool to see. That you can continue to break the borders and the boundaries, right?

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's what was interesting is every week we created something and had different feet and it came out of necessity. I didn't use the feet just because they were cool. You know, one week would be with running blades and next week would be with like these tippy toe feet. And we did it out of necessity. Like I needed to be able to get a certain look and shape and action out of the foot. So we had to get really creative with the feet, but I remember leading up to the semifinals. We had used up all my feet, kind of. We hadn't used my running blades yet.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  I never even thought of using my running blades. They were in Colorado and, you know, you film out here in LA. And I remember Derek and I just thinking like, gosh, we like, you know, we've kind of figured, not figured it all out, but like, what are we gonna do this week that's dynamic and different? And, and then we found out we had the quick step, which was something that Derek was worried about with me because you really have to travel. So you have to have that bounce to your feet. You can't like stay in one spot. And just last minute, I think, actually, I think it was my husband was like, why don't you try your running blades? And he overnighted them to me. We got them on like a Wednesday. You know, the show then airs the following Monday.

• 1:02:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  So that Wednesday, we started playing around and just, you know, choreographed it quickly and it ended up being so cool. I had no idea that I could run and run or dance in running blades.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we were just like, gosh, there's just, there's endless possibilities if you're really willing to work for it.

• 1:02:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What did that do for your, for you in general, being on that show and getting that far?

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  What was like the biggest thing that came from it or, you know?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I just, you know, I think personally, it just.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  You know, just reinforce the idea that we're capable of so much because you're under so much pressure and every week you think you can't do it. Honestly, like every week, I feel like, you know, two days before the show, it seems impossible. You can't remember the dance, you're making mistakes, you're just kind of praying that you do well. And then you do it. And every week you do it. And then you get injured and you push through that and you're still dancing even though you're in so much pain, but you're like still, you know, dancing. And by the end, I think you just realize like you're made of so much. I mean, you're so capable of getting of pushing through injury and fear

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  and pressure. And just if you can push through all of that, what you're capable of doing is, is, you know, amazing. And so for me, just kind of personally to have that to know, I did that. I made it through that. I can make it through anything was good. And then, and then after that, I think what it did too, is it kind of just brought my story and I guess what I do to the attention of others. Right? So I went on after that and did a speaking tour with Oprah. But you know, that didn't even come from Dancing with the Stars. That came from a whole different direction, even though I connected with Oprah on the

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  show, which is interesting. But my sponsor Toyota was sponsoring her. She was doing this big speaking tour. So it was kind of through Toyota that I was able to

• 1:04:08Lewis Howes?

  What was this tour called?

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  It's called the Life You Want Tour.

• 1:04:12Lewis Howes?

  Was this a couple summers ago?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Lewis Howes?

  Was it Rob Bell and Liz Gilbert?

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:16Lewis Howes?

  I had, Rob's a good buddy of mine, he's been on the podcast and Liz Gilbert's coming on this Sunday. She's gonna be in soon.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Is she?

• 1:04:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  So I am doing an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert next, next month.

• 1:04:28Lewis Howes?

  She's great.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  She's amazing. And how crazy is this? So during that time period when I lost my legs and I was kind of at my worst, you know, I was watching Oprah, I was watching Elizabeth Gilbert, I was watching and listening to Deepak Chopra. And then all of a sudden, I was on a speaking tour with them.

• 1:04:46Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it nuts?

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  And it was at the same time that my book was coming out.

• 1:04:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  And I literally just knocked on all of their dressing room doors. But you know, we kept it, we hung out kind of at that time anyways, but I knocked on all their doors, was able to hand them my book.

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Deepak and Elizabeth endorsed my book.

• 1:05:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Isn't that crazy?

• 1:05:08Lewis Howes?

  Incredible, right?

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  And I just, that's, those are the moments where it's just, you know, life is amazing.

• 1:05:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  It's more than serendipitous. It's like this was an aligning of the stars that.

• 1:05:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Happened.

• 1:05:20Lewis Howes?

  And without this obstacle, you want to have these opportunities.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:23Lewis Howes?

  None of this would happen.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  No, but yet it doesn't just come out of the sky either.

• 1:05:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  You, you can't, you know, you can't have a challenge and decide to, you know, just lay in bed all day.

• 1:05:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  You have to go out there.

• 1:05:35Lewis Howes?

  You worked for fourteen years.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then eventually things come together. But really, you know, it's the persistence of your passion that.

• 1:05:44Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Helps you succeed.

• 1:05:45Lewis Howes?

  What's your biggest fear moving forward? You've created so much. Do you have any fears with what's ahead?

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Ah, gosh, um, I don't know. I, I think, do I have any major fears? I, I'm sure I do, and I'm sure I'll think about some when I walk out of here. So certainly, you know, I think I'm just as fearful as anybody else, but I'm trying to think of anything that coming up. I think, um, I just don't want to waste the opportunity we have being here on this earth, learning what we're supposed to learn. I want to, I want to experience it. I want to experience what I'm supposed to experience here. And so I, I don't want to waste, um, I don't want to waste time, you know, because it, you know, our lives can end tomorrow. I just want to make sure that I'm, you know, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing here before it's over, I guess.

• 1:06:32Lewis Howes?

  What's the vision? What's your mission then, moving forward?

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Gosh, this is all, I'm a motivational speaker, I should know.

• 1:06:39Lewis Howes?

  I didn't prepare her, so.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 1:06:41Lewis Howes?

  The whole is against her.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I, um, what is my mission moving forward? I mean, just to live a passionate, inspired life, honestly. And I say that because yes, it is a little general because I have so many different passions. You know, I, I can't say, I just want to come to LA and be an actress. But I would love to be a superhero with running blades in a.

• 1:07:04Lewis Howes?

  Action movie.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Action movie. You know, I mean, but that's just a fun, creative idea. But, um, but I would love to write another book and I love that I get to travel the world and speak. Actually, this is the first year that I, I, I believe in the power of intention. I believe in putting your dreams and your goals out there. And at the beginning of this year, actually, I'll go back to last year, I said, I, um, this year I want to.

• 1:07:29Lewis Howes?

  I will be on the School of Greatness podcast.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:31Lewis Howes?

  I'm just kidding.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  But I said, I'm going to be an international speaker. I did a lot of speaking. I have spoken internationally a little bit, but I did a lot of speaking, you know, here in the US. And this year I decided I want to see the world. I want to travel around the world. I want to experience it and I want to get paid to do it.

• 1:07:49Lewis Howes?

  I, I will put, I'm putting it out there that from this interview, someone's going to be listening from Dubai or Australia and they're going to email you and they're going to say, I heard you from the School of Greatness podcast. We want you to come to Australia. We want you to come here. It's gonna happen.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  See how amazing that is? I mean, how that happened. So already this year, I've been to Japan. I've been to Singapore. I've been to China, Europe. Next week I'm going to Prague and then, um, and then I just got another speaking engagement in China. But it's amazing because you just put, you know, you.

• 1:08:19Lewis Howes?

  You gotta say it.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  It's energetic, but it's also making those connections. You have to say, this is not what I hope to do or what I'm going to try to do. This is what I'm doing.

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's amazing how. I think the universe and the people around you come together and make that become a reality.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, amazing. I want to ask you a couple of final questions. I know we gotta get out of here in a second, but I'm so excited about your story and I'm so glad we could get here and do this. But for those that don't have your book, it's called On My Own Two Feet: From Losing My Legs to Learning the Dance of Life. Make sure to go pick it up. I tried to get it in Barnes and Noble. It was out of stock, so go order it on Amazon or tell them to restock it. If they don't have it. A final few questions that I have. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Recently? Oh, my gosh. Um, I think this isn't just recently. I'm just going to say I'm always grateful for my health. Because so every three months I get my blood drawn to make sure that my kidneys are good because I have a kidney transplant. And every time I get my blood drawn and my numbers come back good, I feel like it's a new lease on life.

• 1:09:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  I think I'm healthy. I can do anything. I'm not going to waste, you know, the moments that I have. I think that also keeps me on my toes because, you know, my kidney could fail at any time. Um, just they're not permanent. They're not considered a permanent fix. It's a temporary fix. At any time your kidney could fail, you could, you know, be on machines again and on a transplant list. And so every day that I'm healthy, I'm grateful.

• 1:09:50Lewis Howes?

  It's a good day.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And luckily every three months I kind of get that like reminder of like, oh, my gosh, I'm healthy. This is huge.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  It's precious. Every day is precious. You never know when.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Lewis Howes?

  Why did you decide? We were talking before. You said you're gonna go back to the Paralympics. Why did you decide to go back? Uh, it's in two years, right?

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Lewis Howes?

  Where is it gonna be?

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Two thousand eighteen in South Korea. Yeah.

• 1:10:16Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a little bit challenging to decide if I was going back or not because I, in a way, kind of checked that box. You know, went on to do many things after that and then now kind of going back around and going back into training. It takes every part of you. And, um, but you know, I think it has just a bigger meaning for me now. It's, it's, it has a bigger purpose. I actually, this year was competing, so I got, I took about two years off.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  And or let's say

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  Speed and do Dancing with the Stars.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And after that, I was, not that I was burned out, but I was tired. You know, it's like, I'm going to, I'm not going to compete this year. So I took actually like a year and a half off of snowboard. And then this year I went back and started competing, doing the World Cups. And it was incredibly challenging because all the other competitors have been working for the last two years and I took a break.

• 1:11:09Lewis Howes?

  You can't just step up there and still be great.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  No, exactly. Yeah. Like you can't, um, you can't, you know, you don't become an Olympian by half assing anything. You know, you have to be 100% in. And so I came in as very much so an underdog. This year I struggled a lot with my legs. I wanted them to do more and I was testing different legs out and I, I did well in some competitions and horrible in other competitions. And really it just felt like a bit of a struggle this year. And then I was in Italy and I was having a little bit of a, a rough day. And I got a phone call at about 11 o'clock at night. Um, and meanwhile, I'm in a tiny, tiny village in Italy. I mean, up in this like little Italian Alp village.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  And at 11 o'clock at night, I got a phone call from the front desk that, um, that somebody was there to see me. So I went downstairs and I mean, I was in my pajamas. I was already in bed. I went downstairs and this young Italian girl who is probably about 17, who had two prosthetic legs, was standing there with her mom, her grandparents, her leg maker and her snowboard coach. And they drove four hours. They, they heard I was in this little town. They drove four, four hours to meet me. And really all they wanted to know is how she can do what I'm doing. Like, yeah. And they all had so many questions as far as, well, how do you get your ankles to move?

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  How do you get that? How do you keep your legs on? How do you do this? How you do that? And, you know, I was showing them my legs and how they work and everything we kind of figured out. And, um, just the fact that, I mean, she was obviously so determined to have her leg maker there, her snowboard coach.

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Every, her whole team. And that's what you need. And I just, you know, I walked away. Feeling so good thinking here I'm in this little village in the Alps. You don't even, you know, you don't even know that people know you're there, would care that you're there. And then the fact that this one girl, just knowing that, um, I guess my experience has shown, or my journey has inspired her and, and given her hope that she can do that as well. It, it, it, it, for me, I thought, that's why I'm doing this. It's not about me, you know, or, and it's not about, you, you have to be into it. You have to be incredibly into it, right? You have to be completely, completely passionate about it. But I think my reason

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  for going back and training again for the next Paralympic team is different than it was before.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Like this time, it's not about me.

• 1:13:41Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Exactly. 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.

• 1:14:08Lewis Howes?

  That's great. Uh, if you could, if you had to tattoo a word on your head or a phrase or a saying that was in reverse, so that every time you looked in the mirror, only you could see it.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  A word or a phrase or a saying, and every time you looked at it, it was just a reminder that you could read it.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Lewis Howes?

  What would that word or phrase be?

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Um, live inspired. That's, I love that because it's just about living an inspired life. Like I believe inspiration's contagious. Um, when you see, and I actually, I'll go back to Derek Hough with this. He's so passionate and he's so inspired when he's creating. Um, it's, it rubs off on you. You see somebody who's passionate about what they're doing. It makes you feel like you can do that too, whatever it is. You know, you want that in your life to be excited and passionate. And so, um, I think it's about keeping yourself inspired. And for me, I never set out to be inspiring. You know, I don't wake up in the

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  morning and think, that's my job is to inspire people. That's what I want to do is inspire people. I wake up and do the things that inspire me.

• 1:15:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  And I'm around the people who inspire me. And, um, and that makes me want to do more. And then, you know, Hopefully, people kind of feed off of that and that makes them want to do more. So just living a completely inspired, passionate life.

• 1:15:31Lewis Howes?

  That's great. I love it. Okay, this is one of the questions I ask at the end for people. It's called the three truths.

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:37Lewis Howes?

  Three truths question. And again, Amy's not prepared here, so.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 1:15:41Lewis Howes?

  This is off the cuff, whatever comes to mind.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:43Lewis Howes?

  But let's say it's many, many years down the road and it's your last day. And you know it's the last day.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Of my life.

• 1:15:49Lewis Howes?

  Last day.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:50Lewis Howes?

  They're actually saying, come here, we want you to come here and you have to go this day.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:15:55Lewis Howes?

  And you know it's happening and you have, you know, everyone there that loves you is there. And it's a harmonious, peaceful moment. And people say, okay, you have a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down three simple truths. So the three things you know to be true about everything you've experienced in your life. And this is essentially the three things that will, you know, be the lessons of our lives.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16:18Lewis Howes?

  What would be the message that you would write down, those three truths of all your experiences? And how your message to the world?

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Okay, quickly, are these words, are they phrases, anything?

• 1:16:29Lewis Howes?

  Sentences, phrases.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16:31Lewis Howes?

  It could be a whole story, but it could be short or whatever.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Um, it's all about love.

• 1:16:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Number one, not just, you know, romantic love. I mean, love, like loving yourself, putting love out there, love is creativity, love is passion. Um, it is sharing what you have with the world. That's love. It's all about love. Second thing is to, um, use your limitations to push off of. I mean, they're not there necessarily to slow you down. They're there to hopefully build you up. Um, and to push off of them and see what amazing places you can go. And the third thing is that it will all make sense in the end.

• 1:17:11Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, those are powerful. I love this.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:15Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Amy, for your incredible inspiration. And your incredible love that you have for yourself, which I think is important, that we have self-love. No matter what the challenge is that we love ourselves.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  You have to.

• 1:17:30Lewis Howes?

  And the love that you bring into the world.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:17:33Lewis Howes?

  And it's an incredible example of what's possible when things maybe don't go the way we want them to go. To see what you've created and all the inspiration you bring into the world. So I really acknowledge you for your courage, your love and your inspiration.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:17:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're welcome.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  You're awesome.

• 1:17:50Lewis Howes?

  You're welcome. And before I ask the final question, I want to make sure everyone go get the book. It's called On My Own Two Feet. Pick it up. We'll have it linked up in the show notes here right afterwards. Where do you hang out on social media the most? Where should we connect with you? Watch, I know we on Snapchat, we got all that going.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  I got all that going, for sure. Still learning about Snapchat, but it is funny. You do all your funny day to day things on there. Um, but Instagram is my favorite. I'm a really visual person. I love photography. I love doing photography. So I post a lot of like, you know, just cool pictures of nature and you know, but also I do a lot of obviously like athletic things. So I do, I post, you know, some workout inspiration on there.

• 1:18:31Lewis Howes?

  I've seen some of your stuff with the, you doing like crunches the other day with the straps or whatever the TRX straps, whatever they're called.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were rings actually.

• 1:18:39Lewis Howes?

  Rings, they were, yeah, you're bringing your knees in.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  Right. And then, um, yeah, so I just, I love, I love Instagram and I love connecting with, um, people on there as well.

• 1:18:49Lewis Howes?

  The Amy Purdy Girl?

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  It's at Amy Purdy Girl.

• 1:18:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  And it's, yeah, G U R L, Amy Purdy Girl. And that's the same for, um, Twitter, Snapchat, same username and Facebook as well.

• 1:19:01Lewis Howes?

  Cool. Awesome. So we'll make sure to go follow you there.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:19:04Lewis Howes?

  Um, and the final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  My gosh, my definition of greatness. Oh, now I feel put on the spot because you're so amazing. You've like created the definition of greatness. Um, definition of create, it's just absolutely being the best that you can be. You know, we all have different circumstances. Um, it is using what you have, um, to get ahead.

• 1:19:30Lewis Howes?

  Amy, thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:19:32Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

• 1:19:36Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with the talented, the inspiring, the lovely Amy Purdy. Again, I was so blown away by her and I'm gonna have to bring her back on at some point because I feel like there's more to share with her story and her lessons. So make sure to share this out. If you guys enjoyed this one, leave a comment. Let me know what you thought about this one. LewisHowes.com/336. Also, share this out with your friends. We are continually to grow this movement of greatness and we can't do it without you. So every time you enjoy these episodes, we'd love it if you share them out and get the word out because that's how we're gonna grow together, that's how we're gonna learn together, that's how we're going to be able to support these inspiring people that I bring on as well. So, share it out, LewisHowes.com/336 and let Amy

• 1:20:20Lewis Howes?

  know what you thought as well. Connect with her on Twitter and Instagram and all that good stuff. And we've got some big interviews coming up. Man, they are some incredible human beings I'm having interviews with guys. I just can't wait for you to meet these people that I get to connect with. I feel so grateful and blessed that they wanna come in and share their stories and share their biggest secrets and lessons about what it means to be great and how to get there. So, I am excited for who we got coming up. We got Rainn Wilson coming up from The Office. We've got Liz Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love author. We've got Taye Diggs coming up. Some of you know the actor Taye Diggs. We've got some incredible

• 1:21:00Lewis Howes?

  people on the way. So, stay tuned for some epic greatness. And if you haven't shared this episode out yet, make sure to share it right now. LewisHowes.com/336. I love you guys so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.