The Mindset That Took Her From 2% Survival Odds to the Paralympics | Amy Purdy

27:20Yeah. So then 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 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. Oh, my gosh. I know. And it's so crazy because how do you wrap your head around? Oh, my gosh. You know what's about to happen. Yeah. You're not going to be there. Yep. And you have no idea what your life is going to be like. You know, I actually visualized 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.

28:04And 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 kind of three goals as I was going into the emergency. 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. You know, and, um, I knew that, uh, well, one of those goals was that I was going to snowboard that year. And I guess I, I've, 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.

28:51I have 30 days to get in shape where, you know, for that it was like, I'm snowboarding, but I'm snowboarding this year. Wow. 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, um, let them know that it's going to be okay. But I first have to figure that out. You know, myself, how to be okay with it. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, the third goal, you know, it's funny. I, all of a sudden I'm spacing the third goal as I'm sitting here. Um, so it was, yeah, well, you'll have to read my book and you'll see what the third one is.

29:23But I think 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 was wheeled in. They amputated my legs above the ankles. And then that was when I stepped into a whole new life and journey. Wow. So did you snowboard then that year? I did. I snowboarded. So I snowboarded about, I'd say, seven months after I lost my legs. Amazing. 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.

30:13You 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 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 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.

30:52You 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 going to snowboard. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get my legs. I'm going to walk. I'm going to learn to snowboard. whatever I need to do to snowboard. But then all of a sudden that moment was there. Yeah. What if I can't? And, um, 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.

31:32So all that went okay. Then I got up and I was just able to kind of point my board and go straight. Um, you know, felt completely different. Couldn't feel my feet at all. And 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 bump and 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. No way. So I kind of broke into pieces.

32:15And 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. No, it was like, oh, my God, she just broke her legs off. Yeah. She was like, oh, my God. And I'm sure she racked up years of therapy bills 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.

32:52And it's funny because we always say with skiers, if a skier falls, we usually call it a yard cell because their skis come off and then their beanie comes off and their poles. Yeah, they have all this stuff around them. And so this was kind of the ultimate yard sale because I had all that around me. Your body came off too. And feet flying down the mountain.

33:17So you're 20 years old at this time, right? Yeah. Wow. And I was really discouraged. I was also – I was still quite sick. I mean I was 83 pounds when I left the hospital. I still at that point was probably under 100 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. But it really, you know, that motivated me. I was definitely discouraged when that happened, when my legs didn't move the way I needed 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 I can do this.

34:06You 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. One step at a time. Yeah. And so, yeah, so I ended up going home from there 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. Wow. And came to find out that there were no snowboard feet out there. You know, it's not something that you can just go to a shop and buy a snowboard feet. This was what, like how many years ago was this? Gosh, this was like 14 years ago. Wow. Probably actually longer.

34:47This was 16 years ago. Wow. Okay. So it probably wasn't as advanced in prosthetics then either, right? I'm still – I'm in the exact same leg setup I was in 16 years ago. So, yeah. I mean even though 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 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.

35:33With leg prosthetics, there actually has been a lot of advancements if you're above the just in the last probably 10 years, they developed computerized knees 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. 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?

36:19Like you can kind of, you don't point your toe, 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. And I never realized. It kind of looks It looks like it's dropped a little bit, almost. Well, I'm in a high heel. Maybe it's the shoe that makes it, yeah. I have three-inch heels on today, so it looks that way. Right. But, you know, it's not going to drop anymore. And if I was in tennis shoes, then it's really at a 90-degree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got you. And there's little things like that that do bother you.

36:49And you realize, you know, as a girl, as a woman, like, there's feminine little things like that. Like, 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 automatically, it knows your legs are crossed. 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.

37:29But with those, um, computerized ankles, it actually pushes off the ball of the foot. And it's like, you get up the stairs so fast. Why don't you use those? Because they made me like six feet tall. Um, 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. Gotcha. 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 control me. And so actually now when I snowboard, I actually snowboard in quite, um, I don't want to say basic feet.

38:08I, I kind of created these feet to snowboard and 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. Use your knees and your, everything else is shock and spring, right? Well, the thing is, though, 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 all works together. So even though I have my knees, the motion's limited because my ankle motion is limited. But I tried actually the next time I snowboarded, I went up with these feet that had shocks and springs.

38:46There are these high athletic feet and I bounced all over the place. You know, I'd hit chatter and I'd, you know, bounce all around. Yeah. And I thought, okay, it's actually better to go back to the basic feet so that I can control them. And I find that just with day-to-day walking and other activities, 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. Right, right. Right. So when did you decide that, okay, maybe I can go to the Olympics, the Paralympics and compete? When did that dream happen?

39:23Funny that it didn't happen until after I lost my legs. 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. um it didn't become an olympic sport until really until around the time that i lost my legs and um 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 it wasn't yet. No. And so my now husband, but he was my boyfriend at the time, Daniel, we started a nonprofit organization called Adaptive Action Sports.

40:11We 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, all types of the action sports that I always loved. We kind of just figured out, 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.

40:51And so we kind of went on this mission, teaching snowboard lessons to people who have, you know, never snowboard before, but then also trying to find the snowboarders out there. 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 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 snowboard. So we all started coming together and hitting up every single snowboard competition with our organization, Adaptive Action Sports.

41:29We 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. And then we did an adaptive snowboard division to the ESPN Winter X Games, which we still run, the Border Cross. And so we started just – Your organization runs it. Yeah. So my husband runs that. And so we started 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.

42:14We'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. Wow. 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. And so that's the one you competed in? Yes. And you got a bronze medal? Yes. What was the event? It's border cross. Border cross. What was it, half pipe? It wasn't like you're doing tricks? No. No, I used to love to do that kind of stuff when I had legs.

42:51It's definitely a lot more complicated now. Yeah. But I'll tell you, even I'm in border cross, it's one of the most complicated sports I probably, an amputee could ever do. I can imagine. Because you need to be so dynamic. That's it. You need your ankles. You need ankles. You need ankles for multiple reasons because – so border cross, 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 features. Man, that's tough. Yeah. It's fast. And then you're around berms and more jumps and berms and more jumps and you're just weeding each other out.

43:28Whoever crosses the finish line first wins, moves on to the next round. 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, this year we actually met a couple new double leg amputee guys who are starting to train. That's cool. And hopefully get, you know, work their way up. But for all these years, it's just been me with two prosthetic legs. And so I race against girls who have their legs or who have one prosthetic leg. And, you know, just that. They're missing an arm.

44:05They 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. Mostly it's just one limb. Mostly it's one limb. Very few people are double and actually have figured out their equipment and had the drive to actually make it to the point where you can compete. And this was like 12 years of training for you. Yes. Right? And just constant innovation, constant creativity to try to figure out how to get my feet to move the way I want them to move. And to be honest, they're still not there.

44:42They're not there. I mean, the other girls, 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're very limited compared to what the human foot can do. So I do realize, though, that that's what my drive is. 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. That's cool. Amazing. What was it like the final round?

45:27Because you made it to the championship race, right? Yes. So the final race to essentially like the medal race. Yeah. How many girls are in that final? So for us, since that was the first Paralympics, it was a much smaller field. Yes. Our first snowboard event in the Paralympics, it was a much smaller field. And actually, we didn't do the typical four by four. Really? Yeah. It was more timed? or it's it was timed and the reason they hate each other it's hard to get up sort of whatever right 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 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 because they couldn't quite figure out the classifications you know i'm a double leg amputee and then i'm competing against and above the knee amputee.

46:23And then there's a girl with legs who maybe has, you know, a bit of MS or something, impairment in there. So they just decided let's just do timed runs and whoever has the best time wins for second, third. 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.

47:08You know, I wouldn't have been there if I didn't lose my legs, you know? 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 racers ready. You know, three, two, one, go. And, I mean, those moments are some of the most intense moments because once you pull out of that start gate as hard as you can. Oh, my God. My heart is like pounding just listening to this. Yeah. It's a dream, you know. It is. It's been my dream as a kid. Yeah. I can only imagine how emotional it is. Yeah. And to actually try to keep those emotions at bay.

47:40Yeah. Focus on the goal. You've been working on this your whole life. Focus. 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 raced 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.

48:16It'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. Yeah. And, yeah, then pulled out of the start gates. and it was very challenging for us. We were in Sochi. The snow was very, very weird. Different. 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. So your time was slow compared to other places. Yeah, you'd like dig your edge in, and it would actually, you'd kind of sink instead of cutting through.

48:58You'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. What was that like when they put the medal around your neck? Amazing. They don't play the national anthem unless you win, correct? How did we do that? Let me think. I think we all, they did the national anthem. For each person, third, second, then first. Yeah, yeah, when we did the award ceremony. Wow. They do an award ceremony, or they do a flower ceremony right after the race on the snow.

49:32So they bring up the top three and give you flowers. And then I think they played. And later that night is the medal. Yeah. Yeah. That night's the medal ceremony. And that was emotional. I can imagine. Yeah. Did you get the rings too? Tattoo? No, I didn't. I haven't. But I know a lot of people who have. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I know. I've kind of thought of it. But, you know, I do have the rings ring. I don't have it on me right now. Oh, that's cool. But usually, you know, to have that Olympic ring, to be able to look down and see it. That's so amazing. Pretty, you know, it's just crazy. I mean, it's so cool.

50:04And 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, to be there and kind of represent that. And, um, 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 metal.

50:47Like 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 congrats on getting this the bronze it's amazing thank you now how did dancing with the stars come about then yeah that um that was interesting so i'll tell you why everything happens for a reason it really does or it's either that or you make do with what you're given and then it makes sense right in the end but um i so that year leading up to the Paralympics, I actually got this random opportunity to do a movie with Samuel L. Jackson.

51:26Before the Paralympics. And you didn't really have a platform before, correct? Well, I had a TED Talk that I did in 2011. And apparently my TED Talk is used by the TED organization to say, this is how you do a TED Talk. Right, right, right. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah. And I did that, I mean, when I first started speaking and I guess going back to that quickly, I, I mean, that was the most challenging thing I've ever done at that time in my life. Did you do a TED Talk? I've been asked to do many, but I'm waiting for the right time. Okay. Yeah. I'm waiting. I've got the speech in mind and I've been practicing and I'm like, just waiting.

52:04I've been waiting. It's all about timing for me. Yeah. So I kind of just jumped in feet first and made myself create the best talk that I could create at that time. 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 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.

52:49But somehow the flyer for one of my speeches ended up on one of the TED organizers' desks. And from that flyer, I was invited to speak. And I was given about three months. I worked harder than I've ever worked in my life 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? Yeah. And, and. Which stories to tell? There's so many stories. Yeah, there's so many. I mean, my talk started out like an hour and a half long. You're like, okay. Yeah. And I wanted every story in there. But then, um, 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.

53:43But 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? Right. 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.

54:26Like 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 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, it actually came up about two weeks before I went to the Paralympics. No way. Yeah. Crazy. I'll tell you what. They called me in November. The Paralympics were in March.

55:08They 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 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. 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 really didn't watch the show. I knew about it, of course, but 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.

55:43Well, I hoped to make it through the first week, but certainly did not go in with any crazy expectations. Had no idea what to expect at all. and um you made it to the semis right i made it so i came in second place yeah came in second last show and that's all i could have asked for i'm telling you to the end 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 want to get 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 do I do this and how do we come up with moves that I can do and that work and that, you know, we didn't want it to look like I had prosthetic legs.

56:30I 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 um 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 he's a great choreographer and he's amazing he's amazing just seriously genius intense too he's like oh yeah he's committed super intense yeah super intense but also hilarious at the same time yeah yeah he's got the funniest personality he's a good dude i've got i've had a chance to hang out a few times nice guy yeah I watched a couple of you guys' performances and they're just mind-blowing, you know, and you guys, you guys have the judges in tears like every time.

57:13So 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? Yeah. And that's what was interesting is every week we created something and had different feats 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 um the semi-finals we had used up all my feet kind of we hadn't used my running blades yet right i never even thought of using my running blades they were in colorado and you know you film out here in LA.

58:00And, um, 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 going to do this week? That's, um, 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, um, 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.

58:34You know, the show then airs the following Monday. 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 or advance in running blades. It's amazing. Yeah. And we were just like, gosh, there's just, there's endless possibilities if you're really willing to work for it. Yeah. What did that do for you in general, being on that show and getting that far? What was the biggest thing that came from it? Yeah. What did it create for you? I think personally, it just reinforced the idea that we're capable of so much because you're under so much pressure.

59:18And 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 and pressure. And just if you can push through all of that, what you're capable of doing is, is, you know, amazing.

1:00:00And 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 show, which is interesting, but my sponsor Toyota was sponsoring her. She was doing this big speaking tour.

1:00:38So it was kind of through Toyota that I was able to... What was this tour called? It's called the Life You Want Tour. Was this a couple summers ago? Yeah, it was. Was it Rob Bell and Liz Gilbert? Yes. Oh, Rob's a good buddy of mine. He's been on the podcast. And Liz Gilbert's coming on this Sunday. She's going to be in studio. Is she? Yeah. So I am doing an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert next month. She's great. 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, I was watching Oprah. I was watching Elizabeth Gilbert. I was watching and listening to Deepak Chopra.

1:01:15And then all of a sudden, I was on a speaking tour with them. Yeah. Isn't that nuts? And it was at the same time that my book was coming out. Oh, my gosh. And I literally just knocked on all of their dressing room doors. We hung out kind of at that time anyways, but I knocked on all their doors, was able to hand them my book. Oh, my gosh. And Deepak and Elizabeth endorsed my book. Oh, my gosh. Isn't that crazy? Incredible, right? And I just, that's, those are the moments where it's just, you know, life is amazing. Oh my gosh. It's more than serendipitous. It's like this was an aligning of the stars that happened.

1:01:52Yeah. And without this obstacle, you wouldn't have these opportunities. Right. None of this would happen. No. But yet it doesn't just come out of the sky either. Right. You can't, you know, you can't have a challenge and decide to, you know, just lay in bed all day. Right. You have to go out there. You work for 14 years. Yeah. And then eventually things come together. But really, you know, it's the persistence of your passion that helps you succeed. What's your biggest fear moving forward? You've created so much. Do you have any fears? What's ahead? Gosh. I don't know. I think – do I have any major fears?

1:02:29I'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's coming up. But I think 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 experience it. I want to experience what I'm supposed to experience here. And so I don't want to waste time, you know, because our lives can end tomorrow. I just want to make sure that I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing here before it's over, I guess. What's the vision?

1:03:06What's your mission then? moving forward? Gosh, this is all, I'm a motivational speaker. I should know. I didn't prepare her. So. No, not at all. To hold this against her. 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 action movie, action movie, you know, I mean, but that's just a fun, creative idea. But, but I would love to write another book and I love that I get to travel the world and speak.

1:03:46Actually, 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, I will be on the school of greatness podcast. Yes. 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 U S 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.

1:04:23I 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 Brainness podcast. We want you to come to Australia. We want you to come here. It's going to happen. See how amazing that is? I mean, how that happens. 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 I just got another speaking engagement in China. But it's amazing because you just put it. You've got to say it.

1:04:52It'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. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing how I think the universe and the people around you come together and make that become a reality. Yeah. Amazing. I want to ask you a couple final questions. I know we've got to 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.

1:05:23Make sure to go pick it up. I tried to get it in Barnes & Noble. It was out of stock. So go order it on Amazon or tell them to restock it if they don't have it. Final few questions that I have. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? Recently? Oh, my gosh. I think this isn't just recently. I'm just going to say I'm always grateful for my health. 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. I think I'm healthy.

1:05:58I 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 that anytime 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. It's a good day. Yeah, absolutely. And luckily every three months I kind of get that like reminder of like, oh my gosh, I'm healthy. It's huge. It's precious. Every day is precious. You never know when.

1:06:37Yeah. If you could, if you had to tattoo a word on your head or a phrase or a saying that was in reverse.

1:06:48So 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. Yeah. What would that word or phrase be? Live inspired. That's – I love that because it's just about living an inspired life. I believe inspiration is contagious. When you see – and I actually – I'll go back to Derek Huff with this. He's so passionate and he's so inspired when he's creating. 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.

1:07:28And so 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 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. Yeah. And I'm around the people who inspire me. and that makes me want to do more and then hopefully people kind of feed off of that and that makes them want to do more. So just living a completely inspired, passionate life. That's great. I love it. Okay, this is one of the questions I asked at the end for people. It's called the three truths.

1:08:05Okay. Three truths question. And again, Amy's not prepared here. Not at all. This is off the cuff, whatever comes to mind. Okay. But let's say it's many, many years down the road and it's your last day. Okay. And you know it's the last day. Of my life. Last day. Okay. And they're actually saying, come here. We want you to come here and you have to go this day. Yeah, right. 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.

1:08:37So 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. Okay. What would be the message that you would write down, those three truths of all your experiences on how your message to the world? Okay. Quickly, are these words, are they phrases, anything? Sentences, phrases. Just three things. Okay. It could be a whole story, but it could be short. It's all about love, number one. Not just romantic love. I mean love, like loving yourself, putting love out there. Love is creativity.

1:09:14Love is passion. And it is sharing what you have with the world. That's love. It's all about love. Second thing is to 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 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. Those are powerful. I love those. 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 you have to and the love that you bring into the world oh thank you 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 in all the inspiration you bring to the world.

1:10:11So I really acknowledge you for your courage, your love, and your inspiration. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. You're awesome. 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 got Snapchat. We got all that going. I got all that going for sure. I'm still learning about Snapchat, but it is funny. You do all your funny day-to-day things on there.

1:10:42But Instagram is my favorite. I'm a really visual person. I love photography. I love doing photography, so I post a lot of just cool pictures of nature. But also, I do a lot of, obviously, athletic things, so I post some workout inspiration on there. I've seen some of your stuff with you doing crunches the other day with the straps or whatever, the TRX straps, whatever they're called. They were rings, actually. Yeah, you're bringing your knees in. Right. And then, yeah, so I just, I love Instagram. And I love connecting with people on there as well. The Amy Purdy Girl? It's at Amy Purdy Girl. Okay, cool.

1:11:21And it's G-U-R-L, Amy Purdy Girl. And that's the same for Twitter, Snapchat, same username, and Facebook as well. Cool. Awesome. So we'll make sure to go follow you there. Yeah, thank you. And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness? Oh my gosh, my definition of greatness. Oh, now I feel put on the spot because you're so amazing. You've created the definition of greatness. Definition of great, it's just absolutely being the best that you can be. We all have different circumstances. It is using what you have to get ahead. Amy, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. I appreciate it.

1:12:01Thank you. Appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

1:12:39And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.