The School of Greatness - 651 Overcome All Odds with Amy Purdy

Episode Date: June 8, 2018

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

This is 5-Minute Friday! We have an incredible guest today. Her name is Amy Purdy, and man, this woman blows me away. I'm so inspired by this human being. She is a top-ranked female adaptive snowboarder in the U.S. and a three-time World Cup para snowboard gold medalist and also the 2014 Paralympic bronze medalist. She had to amputate both of her legs below the knee when she was a young woman and overcame so many obstacles. Then later, she recently was on Dancing

with the Stars and took runner-up after inspiring the nation by all of her incredible dance routines that she did. She also went on tour with Oprah and Oprah calls her her hero. She is such an inspiring person and man, this conversation, I did not want it to end. 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. And I knew that, well, one of those goals was that I was going to snowboard that year. That's amazing.

I guess 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. Wow. And then I knew that when I figured it out or the other goals, 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 myself. You have to figure it out yourself. How to be okay with it, yeah. Yeah, 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. So I was wheeled in. They amputated my legs above the ankles. Then that was when a whole new, I stepped into a whole new life and journey. I was so grateful because of everybody who supported me, everything that we went through to be able to be there,

represent anybody with a disability or anybody who had an adversity and didn't think that they could do something powerful with their lives, to be able to be there and kind of represent that. And yeah, I mean, and then just knowing that all your hard work paid off, there was a little bit of a relief, right? It was like, thank God. Thank God I actually brought metal home because I really had my heart set on it. That's what your whole couple years leading up is just bringing home a metal. Every minute that I didn't work out, I knew somebody else was working out harder than me,

and you needed to be ahead of the game. Crazy. It takes all of you. Congrats on getting the bronze. It's amazing. Thank you. I think my reason for going back and training again for the next Paralympic team is different than it was before. Like this time, it's not about me. It's not about for you to win something or achieve something. It's to make a bigger impact. 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 know, it can't be about the medals. That's great.