Amy Purdy On Resilience

Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

Susie Moore:

Today on the podcast, I'm bringing you perhaps the most remarkable, inspirational, resilient force of a human being that I've ever had the pleasure to call my friend Amy Purdy. Now, if you don't know who Amy Purdy is, I mean, I don't even know where to begin because she is many, many things. She's a New York Times bestselling author. She's one of the most in demand speakers in the world, and she's a three time paralympic medalist and a total trailblazer in paralympic snowboarding. And when Amy was 19 years old, she contracted bacterial meningitis and both of her legs were amputated below the knee. She lost her kidney, she lost her hearing in one ear and her spleen and doctors gave her just a 2% chance of survival. And I discovered, Amy, you'll hear it in our conversation via the Oprah Winfrey Super Soul Sessions podcast years ago, and I've been blessed to meet and know Amy and call her my friend in real life in recent years.

And this conversation is just such a blessing. Amy's so generous in explaining how she lives without limits in sharing a deeply mystical experience that happened before she contracted meningitis. And in sharing what really keeps her going and motivated and how she manages her mind in the most incredible and efficient way possible to allow her to continue to forge ahead no matter what happens in life. And friends, we know that life is full of unpredictability, there is stress, there are challenges, there are suffering. And whenever I even need a source of inner strength, I think of Amy and I think of what it is that she's already accomplished in her life and what she continues to accomplish, even though life continues to throw challenges her way. And I deeply love this conversation. It's one of the most moving I've ever had, and I'm thrilled to bring it to you. So I give you now my friend Amy Purdy.

Amy bloody purdy. What a treat to have you here today. I'm so happy. I feel so lucky to know you. Thank you so much for being here. Oh my gosh, Susie, this is how I feel about you. You are just sunshine. You're so bright. You have so much light to share. You're just, I love you. Oh, right back at you, Amy. I mean, I was preparing for this interview and I was thinking, wow, we could speak about so much. We could sit here for hours and hours. And I thought we'd kick off with how I first found out about you, because I'm not sure I've told you, have I? No, I dunno if I've heard it. So a lot of people, of course, already know Amy because she's a very famous speaker, author, inspiration for so many. The first time I discovered you, I remember it was very cold in New York, and I'd walk around the Jackie Oasis reservoir listening to podcasts, and I was listening to Oprah's Super Soul Sessions there called, and that's when I found you. You were next up in the line. And I was just like, wow, what a human being. And since then, of course, I've been so blessed to get to know you. And I always think to myself, Amy, when anyone wants to give me an excuse or an explanation as to why something can't be done, I just want to slap him in the face for the first of you.

That is how I feel like are, that's what I would love to get into today. And you said on that podcast that you were 19 and you felt like you had the flu one day. And within 24 hours, you were in the hospital on life supports given less than a 2% chance of living. And it took five days for the doctors to find out that you contracted bacterial meningitis. And could you just talk for anyone who hasn't heard your story, could you just talk to us about that? Talk to about what it's meant for you, what it meant for you back then?

Amy Purdy:

Yeah, yeah. And I didn't even know that's how you got to know who I was. So that was, I love that story. Thank you. I grew up in Vegas and grew up snowboarding, believe it or not, outside of Las Vegas. There are skewer resorts outside of Vegas, and I was so passionate about it, and I had these plans of traveling the world, and I decided to become a massage therapist. So I'd have this job that would travel with me. And I loved my job, I loved helping people, and I was so excited about my work. And I remember this day just waking up. I remember the day so clearly. I remember feeling the cold tile under my feet when I woke up that morning. And I got ready and I went to work. And about halfway through my day, so normally I would do maybe five massages, but at my third massage, I started to feel really just fatigued and run down, and my back was zaki and my neck was zaki.

And so I went home from work early because I thought I had the flu. And within 24 hours, I was in the hospital on life support given less than a 2% chance of living. And like you said, it wasn't until five days later that we found out that it wasn't the flu. We initially thought it was something called bacterial meningitis, and we have no idea how I got it. It spread like the flu or the cold. So it's this little kind of microscopic bacteria that somebody could have coughed on me, and maybe that's how I got it. But because of this bacteria, it completely shut my body down. They say 85% of people who get it die within the first 15 hours because it doubles every 20 minutes in your body. So you think you just have the flu until you're suddenly fighting for your life.

And that's what happened with me. And so I ended up in the hospital in a coma fighting for my life. I did have a near death experience in a surgery and a lifesaving surgery that I had, and my entire life changed forever. As you can imagine. I went on to lose my legs below the knees because I had septic shock, and then I had a kidney transplant. My dad gave me a kidney and my spleen ruptured early on, and that was taken out, and I lost the hearing in my left ear. So my entire body and life changed, and I stepped into the world as a whole new person and had to find my way. Again,

Susie Moore:

Amy, I mean, as I was preparing for this interview, I mean, of course I know your story and everything that you've overcome, and I was like, I'm going to look up Amy on Wiki, and of course I know you're on Dancing With the Stars. You have your own podcast. You got your New York Times first selling book, you're this book out speaker. It's like accomplishment, accomplishment, accomplishment. And then I saw all these other things I didn't know about you about playing Madonna in a music video you've been doing. I mean, it's incredible just how the volume of things, oh, the amazing race, so many things. And I'm like, you wouldn't necessarily think that a human being who went through what you went through. So being a double amputee, losing your hearing, living on your dad's kidney, you wouldn't necessarily think that that person would achieve and allow in so many and so many incredible allowing in all these incredible accomplishments and experiences in your life. And I'm sure people look at you and scratch their heads a little. They're like, well, how does she do it? Does she have some magic gene? And I know you speak so much about resilience, so have you ever thought like, wow, what really makes me me? Is it even something that I can distill in such a simple way?

Amy Purdy:

And it's funny because when I was young, I was very sensitive. I cried very easily. My parents looked at that as being kind of weak. They said, when I got sick and I fought this thing and I came back, they said, Amy's the last person we thought in the family could actually handle something like this. So it's not like it has always been in me. It's not like I was always known as this strong, resilient kid. You really don't know your own strength until you're forced to use it. And there's certain little moments that happened through my journey that changed my perspective and led me on the path that I'm on now. And one of those moments was when I was in the hospital, the doctor said, you're more likely to be hit by lightning than you are to get what you got and survive. And so in my mind I thought, okay, so then anything can happen. So anything can happen in a bad way. I got this crazy bacteria that's so rare to get, but it made me think, well, then the possibilities are endless of what could happen. So that means I could go on and snowboard again. I could go on and do this or do that. It somehow just, it broke all the rules and it made me think that, so anything's possible. So there are no rules. So then does that make sense? Oh,

Susie Moore:

To me, yes. And I'm singing inside as you are speaking, there are no rules. Anything is possible.

Amy Purdy:

Yes. It was just such a perspective shift where it's like the rarest thing happened to you. One in a million people are going to get this thing and survive. And I think, well, one in a million people go on to be really, really successful. So that could be me as well. So somehow it just kind of broke the rules and it broke down the barriers of what is possible. And then it allowed me to kind of visualize what I wanted for my future. And I had a lot of different moments. I mean a lot of moments, down moments. And it was those down moments where I was terrified and I had no idea what my life was going to be like, that I visualized my most of how I wanted to live my life because I knew I didn't want to live my life like that, laying in bed without my legs hooked to a dialysis machine. I was only 19 years old. I was 83 pounds after going through everything, I just lost my legs. I had to wrap my head around that. Then I was facing having a kidney transplant, had to wrap my head around that. And what's funny is I thought, these are the things that happen to people on Oprah, not me, not realizing

Susie Moore:

Oprah

Amy Purdy:

On Oprah, of all the things here.

But, it was those dark moments that made me think, kind of made me daydream the most because I thought, well, I don't want to live like this the rest of my life, so how do I want to live? And that allowed me to kind of daydream and think about if there were no rules, if I could do anything I wanted to do, what would that be? And I saw myself walking again gracefully where you didn't know, not that I would want to hide it, but I think a lot of people assumed, oh, you're going to have prosthetic legs. You're going to be walking with a cane. You're going to be walking with a limp. And so there was something about that that I just saw myself walking gracefully and I saw myself snowboarding again and saw it so strongly that I could feel it. I could feel my heart racing and my chest.

I got excited. I could feel my muscles twitching as if I was doing it. And just having that feeling, having the vision and the feeling that went with it, I knew that I would do it again. I just didn't know how. And so I think it's so important to allow ourselves to daydream and to kind of take the barriers away. Realistically, at that time, I'm laying in bed with no legs hooked to a dialysis machine. Realistically, you wouldn't think that I'd be able to snowboard again, but I just kind of took how out of it and allowed myself to believe and believe that maybe this is possible. And I think we stop ourselves before we get started because we think, well, nope, I can't. Can't snowboard again. I don't have feet. I mean, that's a realistic excuse.

Susie Moore:

No one would say that you are wrong. Exactly. It'd be like, well, this is it. And I love how you speak about visualization, Amy, you've spoken about it a lot, and I'm happy that we're touching on this because I think that a lot of people don't understand the power of, yeah, you are in a hospital bed with all of this terrible news that it's all such a surprise, right? Terrible coming at you and you're hooked up to a dialysis machine, but in your mind, you are somewhere else,

Amy Purdy:

Right?

Susie Moore:

You are in the room, but you are, and isn't it fascinating, of course, you went through this huge experience for this to be true for you. You say here, when I was because I wanted to speak to you about visualization today. I love what you said. This is a quote from you. After I lost my legs, all I wanted to do was snowboard again. I remember spending an entire year on the computer looking for adaptive snowboarders or snowboard legs or adaptive snowboard schools or just something that I could connect to. I already knew how to snowboard. I just needed to find the right legs. This makes me want to cry because it's like you already know there's a solution. The solution is there. It's just connecting a couple of dots, but you are not like, will it happen? Is it over? Should I just start drinking whiskey? Nothing wrong with that, but you're like, I'm a snowboarder. I can see it. I can feel it. I can feel my heart pumping. I just need to find the right tools. Isn't it interesting how all of the power is in your desire, vision, and the rest is kind of details,

Amy Purdy:

Right? It's amazing the way that you say that because it is. It's having the vision and the belief without knowing how to get there yet, but believing it and feeling it strong enough that it is possible one way or another might not look how you want it to look. It's not like I'm going to grow my feet back and snowboard the way I did, but I can feel myself doing it. I knew that somehow it had to be possible, and I thought maybe there hasn't been somebody passionate enough to actually put in the work to figure it out. And I knew that I was passionate enough to figure it out because that snowboarding was just my life at that time. I loved it so much. It's how I connected with my friends. I planned on snowboarding the rest of my life, and so I was dedicated to figuring it out.

But when your why want to do something, I think the how figures itself out and how is the little details, you go down one path and that doesn't work. So you try another path and maybe that doesn't work, and then you try something else. And that does work. I think when you're committed to the goal, you will always figure it out, but you have to be committed. And it doesn't matter what comes your way, you will figure it out. It may take a lot of time, it may take a lot of effort, it may take a lot of trial and error, but if you are truly committed, you will figure it out.

Susie Moore:

What I love about your story, Amy, in observing you is that most people won't have your experience, right? It's like you said, the chances of being struck by lightning, it's so minuscule. And most of us will wait for something to happen for us to get really clear and almost have a real focus. Often it's a grief, some type of loss, some type of shock, some diagnosis. And I wonder, I mean, observing you going through something so challenging, physically, emotionally, everything that you've experienced, does someone have to wait in order to know that there are no rules? Does someone have to wait for something to happen? Because how I connect this with the average human, so trying to write a book or trying to figure out a relationship, do we have to wait to learn that there are no rules, or is this just something that you're so passionate about sharing with us?

Amy Purdy:

No, I mean, you don't need to have something major happen in your life to realize how much control you really have.

It is just a perspective shift. And sometimes I still go through that where I think it's natural that we kind of box ourselves in a little bit of like, well, this is what I do, or this is how the world sees me. And you kind of box yourself into this little path because maybe that's what your habits are day to day. You're doing the same thing kind of over and over, and to step outside of that sometimes feels so big, and then all of a sudden there's just something that opens your perspective where you go, oh my gosh, I could have done this all along. The only thing stopping me was me. And so I think we box ourselves in, and first of all, just to know that we do. We all do. It doesn't matter if you're someone like me who's broke all these barriers when it comes to trying something new, we always want to find the confidence before we get started.

The confidence comes in the doing. You have to get started before you're confident. And everybody says, oh, I'm not good at that. I'm not going to try to do that. The amount of people who have said, oh, I can't snowboard. I tried one time and I fell everywhere. I can't do it. It's like, well, you're not going to be confident. Yeah, I can do this. Until you actually get out there and start doing it. And then you start to build confidence. Confidence builds on confidence. So you have to have the courage to get started first.

Susie Moore:

And it's not as if Amy, ever since you were able to snowboard, of course, when all of your very impressive medals, it's not as if it's been easy street from there either. You've had a lot of multiple surgeries in the past, couple of it's been an ongoing journey for you. So I mean, I want to give up sometimes when the toaster doesn't work and I'm hungry or like, oh my gosh, the cars run out of charge. Oh f my life. Do you ever have those moments of like, gosh, hasn't this been enough? Or in moments when there's still more thrown at you, do you still visualize? What's your process now?

Amy Purdy:

Yeah, I mean for sure. And just over the last three years, I went through something that, to be honest, was even harder than what I went through 20 years ago. Harder than losing my legs, I think because what I went through 20 years ago, that was life or death, and I chose to live. And in order to live, I had to lose my legs. I had to lose my kidney function and have a kidney transplant. There wasn't really a choice. I chose to live, whereas three years ago, I severely injured my left leg. So my prosthetic leg pushed into my pop artery and it damaged it severely to where my entire femoral artery, popliteal artery and all the native arteries in my left leg completely shut down. And so I was faced with losing more of my legs. So right now where my legs were amputated originally are a couple inches, the ankle, but there was a chance that I would be losing my entire left leg because there was absolutely zero blood flow.

All of a sudden. I pretty much just woke up that way. And so here are the legs that have taken me so far in my life. The legs, I snowboarded on the legs. I did dancing with the stars on, actually ended up knocking me off my feet. This prosthetic pushed behind my knee and it pushed into my artery. It shut everything down. So I ended up having 10 surgeries, two new leg amputations. Luckily we didn't have to go too high up, but enough to where I could get the blood flow that I need. And so that was such a challenging journey because I went from feeling like I lost everything when I was 19 years old to rebuilding to a point where I thought that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I thought that I was living my purpose. This is what I was supposed to always do, is figure out the possibilities and help others do the same.

Then now all of a sudden I'm being knocked off my feet again, and there was so much uncertainty. I didn't know if I'd be able to wear a prosthetic leg on my left side ever again. Didn't know if I'd saved my leg, and I couldn't escape it. I just had to sit in it for three years. It was a three year journey, and it was up and down, and I thought I would do good, or I thought I was doing good. And as soon as I thought I was doing good, I couldn't trust that because all of a sudden something would happen in my leg and I'd be rushed back into surgery. It was just this up and down, and I didn't know what to trust. And to be honest, it felt so much harder than what I went through 20 years ago because this wasn't life or death.

This was quality of life. It felt like the quality of my life is going down or will go down if I can't do the things that I want to do. And I was terrified that I wouldn't snowboard again, that I wouldn't be able to walk on stage again and comfortably be able to sit up on stage and speak and confidently be able to do that. I did feel for a little bit for the first time in my life like a victim. This happened to me. So there were moments of that. But then the more I would sit in that, and I actually would write a lot, I connected with my audience a lot throughout that on social media. I kind of wake up every morning and just my posts would be just writing my thoughts out. And it would always start with maybe the negative a little bit, just like I'm feeling like a victim.

This is what's happening. But as I would write, it would just naturally turn itself around. And by the end of I would come out, I'm not a victim. This has happened. Anything else I've gone through in my life, I always believed everything happened for a reason. And you can't be selective with that if you believe that. You got to really believe that about everything. And so I felt like, okay, I don't know why this is happening, but I have to just have faith that it will all make sense in the end. And that was actually what was told to me during my near death experience when I was 19 years old in the hospital, is no matter what happens in your life, it will all make sense in the end. And so to remind myself of that, that you don't know the answers right now.

You don't know why things are happening, but just to have the faith that it'll all make sense in the end. And so that's just one example of how I would be in kind a negative mindset. But then just by sitting down and writing all these other kind of thoughts and ideas and experiences I've had would come into my mind and I'd be able to kind of work through it. And by the end of just that little journal prompt or writing just for my social media, I'd come out, no, I got this. I got this. So I realized that my brain kind of works that way too. It might start in a spot that's not the most positive with this experience that we're having, but then I kind of am able to bring in these different perspectives and then realize, no, all of this does mean something. I just don't know the answer yet. And the answers started to reveal themselves when I started to see so many people join me on this journey and share their challenges that they're faced with. And it just made me realize how many people go through a lot, even more than what I've gone through. And that the longer we live, the more we're going to go through. And so you need to be resilient, figure out a way to work through those tough moments, because I mean, that's not only how you survive, but that's how you thrive.

Susie Moore:

And how are you doing now after 10 surgeries, after three years? How are you?

Amy Purdy:

I am doing so good, and I'm so grateful. It's crazy. I actually didn't think that I would get to where I'm at right now when it comes to just how much I've recovered. So the most amazing thing happened. And so basically, so I lost all the native arteries in my left leg, which is crazy. That's how the blood gets to your knee and your leg and your foot. And I don't have those native arteries anymore. But what happened is through all these surgeries, we basically bought time and my body figured itself out. And so now I have a whole new pathway of arteries and my left leg almost like branches from a tree that just kind of branched off and my leg feels, I mean, it feels almost a hundred percent right now. And I'm walking again, and I really can't believe it. Every day I wake up and I feel so grateful.

And I feel like gratitude is really important. Gratitude is the key to abundance because it doesn't matter what you go through, if you are grateful for what you have, you feel fulfilled, you feel abundant. And to wake up every day and go, oh my gosh, I am so lucky. And to be able to experience my body healing itself in the way that it has, I am so grateful for this body. It's got scars, it's got stretch marks, it's I've got prosthetic legs, and it is so incredible. And we all have the ability to wake up and do that and say that and appreciate our bodies, just that if you can't appreciate anything else, because everything else seems to be going wrong, you can appreciate that you've got this incredible body that's working for you, that's fighting for you every single day, every day. And how lucky are we that we get to live another day and see what the possibilities are?

Susie Moore:

What happened with your leg. It's a miracle. It is. It's a miracle. And when you're like, I wake up every day feeling grateful, imagine the shift that would happen in the world if we all did that. Even 5% of how you do it, waking up, being healthy, being able to move. This isn't true for everybody. And two things that I've noticed about you, Amy, so I would guess are real benefits, really, really cool things that I love about you is your sense of faith. So you already kind of touched on this, believing that there is a meaning attached to everything, and then also a jolly good sense of humor. I want to talk about both of these, but I remember in the first interview when I discovered you, someone said to you that something was going to happen like this. There was a woman who said to you, I think she assumed it had already happened or asked you about it. And she's like, oh, then it's going to happen. Could you tell us about that and what you think about that now?

Amy Purdy:

Yeah, I mean, that was a very special experience. It was actually a man. It was an old man, but the way that it happened was, so I was a massage therapist and I was working in Vegas at Canyon Ranch, which is this incredible world-class spa. And we had just opened and I worked a full day, and this is probably a month before I got sick. So I worked a full day. I was really tired. I walked out to my car, which was so far away, by the way, it's walking through those Vegas casinos. I walked two miles to get to my car pretty much. And I remember getting into my car and my manager called me and said, oh my gosh, Amy, is there any way you can come back? Because somehow there's this older man who's sitting in the lounge and we kind of forgot about him, and we don't have another massage therapist, so can you come back and massage him?

And so I said, sure. And so I went back and I just remember when, well, first of all, I had to set up the massage room in this little kind of closet area because we didn't even have massage rooms available. Everybody else was taking them. And so I tried to set this room up nice and put candles up. And so when I went out to get 'em, I just remember thinking he was just this sweetest man. He was just this older man with these baby blue eyes. And I just thought, I'm so happy that I came back to help this guy in order just to be here with him. And so I brought him back to my room and he laid down. And when I put my hands on his back, there's just this incredible energy exchange that happens as a massage therapist. You really can feel people's energy.

You can feel if they're tense, if they're emotional, if they're holding onto emotion, if they're relaxed. It's just this interesting exchange that happens. And so right away when I put my hands on his back, I just knew I thought he was so accepting. I just knew that this was going to be a good experience for both of us. And as I was massaging him, we started talking and he asked me a question that now looking back, you think, gosh, this could kind of throw you off a little. But I knew exactly what he meant. So he said, Amy, I have to ask you a question. Have you crossed over yet? I said, no. And I don't even know if I'd ever really heard that kind of phrase before crossed over that term, crossed over, but I knew what he meant because for a very long time, I felt like something was going to happen in my life, and I didn't know if it was good or if it was bad, if I was going to get in an accident, or it just felt like there was this interesting tension that was happening internally for me where I felt like there was this buildup.

Something's going to happen, and I don't even know what it is, but I even wrote it down in my journal that I don't know if this is good. I don't know if this is bad, but I feel like something's going to happen in my life that's going to set me apart. That's what I knew. And it was a weird thing, just this kind of thought that I had. So when he asked Amy, have you crossed over yet? I felt like that's what he was talking about. And I said, no, but I feel like something's going to happen. And he said something along the lines of, it is going to happen, and when it does, don't be scared. He said, you're going to go on to live an amazing life. And then he told me the story of him falling in a well when he was younger and drowning and dying, but then they saved him and he came back.

And that when he came back, he lived completely different than he did before. It made him realize that he was kind of living on the surface of life before, but then after coming back from this near death experience, he felt the depths of life. He lived kind of in a different way. He lived with a different energy in a different perspective. And he said, the same thing will happen for me. And it sounds so crazy to have a conversation like that, but when you're in these very intimate spiritual moments with each other, oftentimes you have really interesting conversations with people. So this didn't seem odd, but it was definitely just incredibly impactful for me and confirmed what I had already been feeling. And when I went home that day, I thought about it the whole drive home, and I went home and I wrote about him in my journal, and it was about a month later that I entered the hospital in septic shock.

My blood pressure was like, I mean, they gave me two hours left to live when I entered the hospital, when I was laying in the emergency room, I heard the doctors and the nurses, they were just freaking out. The nurse called my mom and said, we don't know what she has, but she has maybe two hours left to live. Another nurse was trying to get an IV in, and she was crying, and she screamed to the doctor and said, why can't I get an IV in? And he said, because she's in cardiac arrest. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm in cardiac arrest. And then I asked the doctor if I'm going to die, and the doctor said, we're doing everything we can to save you. And right then I thought, this is what that man was talking about, that it is going to happen, but don't be scared because you're going to live an amazing life. And it makes me emotional to think about because I actually don't talk about it that much.

And who knows if he was an angel or a spirit guide, who knows if he even knew the impact that he would have? But I believed it. And I think that's the most important part, is to hear someone say, you're going to live an amazing life. I hung on those words when I was being told that I was going to die. And I think it's just the power of belief. Maybe it was a premonition, maybe he did know what was going to happen, but I believed it. And I think that belief is what kept me hanging on. And then I believed it so strongly, no, I'm going to live an amazing life. That's what this guy said. And so I've kept that in the back of my mind through all the obstacles, all the challenges that I went through, and even when things felt impossible, it felt impossible to walk again on two prosthetic legs. It hurt so bad, but I would keep this kind of little voice in the back of my mind, mind to Amy, just put one foot in front of the other because you are going to live an amazing life. The power of belief is just, it's everything if you can believe, and you don't even know. You just don't know that outcome at all.

I don't even know. How do you explain belief? How would you even explain it? It's just an absolute knowing that somehow you're here for a reason and to hang on to that through everything you go through, and it changes the way you go through it.

Susie Moore:

I can't believe the magic of this, the messenger, the timing, because I wanted to ask you, did you remember it or did you remember it? Far later, this conversation, this interaction by chance, didn't even realize there was an appointment. You had to go back and this guy, and I mean, I've never had an encounter like that, and it happens to you. And so it is your amazing life. I mean, look, 20 years later,

Amy Purdy:

And I'm sure he is not even here anymore. He was much older at the time that I had met him, and that was 20 years ago. But it's pretty amazing if he could see what did happen and what I was able to go on to do, really, I don't want to say all because he told me that, but there was a belief that I had in what he said, and then I went, okay, then I guess that's the life I'm going to live. It's kind of interesting. That's why it's so important to support each other. And that's why I'm so grateful to have you and have friends that are so supportive who say, oh my God, you're amazing. Who genuinely say that, or You can do this, or you can do that. You just sometimes need to hear it to know that, to believe it. And yeah, it's fascinating. And I've never had an experience like that since. So it was a very special moment and message, and it totally prepared me for what was to come. And it gave me a belief that no matter what happened, I would live an amazing life. And I have

Susie Moore:

You continue to, you're just getting started, Purdy, come on. You're doing so many things. It's like, what? Here? She's here. She's there. She's doing. I think your life is so fascinating. What I hear from you behind the scenes, the juicy, even the secret stuff, I'm like, wow, this is so awesome.

Amy Purdy:

I know. It's been incredible, truly. It's been unreal. But it makes me think too that maybe we are all angels for each other and we don't know it. So just think about who you pass throughout the day that you want to say something to somebody that's positive, whatever it may be, do it because you have no idea how that one thing could impact them.

Susie Moore:

And thinking about this conversation that you are sharing and have continued to share many years later, this one interaction, I mean the power of it, what we do for each other, and then moving to sense of humor. I enjoy Amy. I enjoy the stuff you post, the way you look at life. I mean, I loved it. I remember once I saw this story that you posted, and it was, I don't even remember what brand, but some commercial talking about we love Feet, and it was like a shoe brand or something, I don't know. But you are like, this is so rude. You love it yourself. You're so ready to look at not take everything so seriously. And don't you think that we kind of have to do this a little bit to stay sane? Oh, yeah.

Amy Purdy:

Oh yeah.

Susie Moore:

Tell us about how you bring this lightness through just laughter and just throwing your hands up maybe once in a while and just being silly.

Amy Purdy:

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to have fun with life. You just have to have fun with what you have. You can't change the situation. And it's not about, I don't know, it's not about making fun of yourself or something to really hide the pain or something like that. No, it's really about having a soft heart with yourself and just not taking things so serious and finding the humor things. I mean, for me, it really is. I mean, my husband and I laugh all the time because when I go to bed at night, sometimes I'll just step out of my legs and then I still have my pants on my legs, and it's like, it look so funny. It's like there's just these legs standing of the bed that have pants on still. And I mean, we will laugh about that, or my toes will be pigeon toed or something will be going on with my foot that I have no idea because I can't feel it.

I mean, to me it's, it's actually hilarious. It's really funny. There's obviously not funny parts that are heavy, which is just trying to get legs comfortable enough to walk in that is so challenging and can be so frustrating. And it's taken me years just to get back to where I'm at right now, and I'm not even back to where I was. But you have to have fun along the way because your life is happening today. It's not something that, oh, when I get through this, then I'll live my life. Then I can have fun. When I get walking again, then I'll live my life. Then I'll have fun. No, your life is happening today. And the reality is, we could all die tomorrow. And don't you want to enjoy your life? You want to enjoy the moment, and that's what it's about. So it's about having a soft enough heart with yourself to enjoy the moments, even if they're not ideal, even if they don't look like the way you expected them to look, it's enjoying your life today because this is all we have. And so a day will bring all types of emotions. You have good moments and bad moments, but to just keep a soft heart and an appreciation for what you have today is, I mean, for me, that's the only way I know how to live my life.

Susie Moore:

And when you share too, your behind the scenes, your struggles, I love it How I wear my feet in the ocean, how I, it's just the lightness that you bring. I think that probably without even realizing, without you realizing just the, I mean, permission isn't the right word, but the way that you live your life, right? Because we learn through observation. Someone has a little problem and we can lose our mind when someone lets us down or someone leaves us a bad comment, or whenever I just watch you how much fun you are having. And even with things that most of us never think about or deal with the actual specifics of your legs showing us. And whenever I watch it, I'm just like, oh, yes. Everything just feels better. I just feel like look at how people look at all the joy that there is. I mean, a couple of the things that you said, your extremely popular Ted Talk, you must watch it. Friends, if you haven't already with Amy, it's so good. Amy putty, Ted Talk. You said you could adjust your, or back then you could adjust the length of your legs to fit the guy, the height of the guy. And you also said that one time your snowballed accidentally came off and you're like,

Amy Purdy:

What? Yes, my leg went with it.

Susie Moore:

But think about, I mean,  I'm laughing out loud. This is so permission giving to find joy no matter what.

Amy Purdy:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's funny because it's so my normal that I don't really think about it that much. But with social media and especially TikTok doing shorter, more entertaining videos, I'm like, gosh, I could be sharing the insights just a little bit of what life is like with prosthetics. And a lot of the time it is just interesting and funny, different, and I think it's really important because I think we have this perspective, I think just as a collective, that to become disabled or to have some kind of limitation or to lose something is a really bad thing. So people look at others with disabilities oftentimes and feel sorry for them. Like, oh, what happened to them? And they're in a wheelchair and they can't walk, and they're probably sad. There's just all these assumptions around disability, and that oftentimes is not the case at all.

I mean, that person adapted and maybe is grateful for what they went through because it taught them something. It taught them an appreciation for life. It builds resilience. When you deal with challenge daily, it makes you a stronger, more resourceful, creative person. They're not saying that it's that way for everybody, but I think it's important to change this collective idea that when bad things happen, it's kind of poor you and then you don't have as good of a life. And so for me, I've wanted to just really share the reality of what it's like. And the reality is it is very fascinating. It's fascinating to me to have all these different legs and the possibilities really are endless with the different types of legs you can have. And it's really interesting, and it's really cool in a lot of ways. And so it's cool to see kind of a perspective change in my audience, I would say, especially on TikTok, where nobody really even knows me.

Instagram, it's like people have been following me for years. They saw me on Dancing with the Stars, stuff like that. But TikTok, your video just goes out into the universe and you get all these random people commenting and to see people go, oh my gosh, I never thought about it this way. Or, yeah, actually, at first I thought that I'd feel sorry for you, but I don't now. This is amazing. You've lived an incredible life. Just to see that you can kind of change people's perspectives on what happens to us or what happens for us in life is really cool. And so, yeah, I've just kind decided to show up in that way where if I can kind of shine a light on a situation that you would assume would be heavy, then I think that's important to change people's minds a little bit.

Susie Moore:

I think it's so powerful because look at your freedom and joy with it. And I mean, you did a post once and I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was something along the lines of what people say to you, because truly, Amy, when I look at you, victim is the last, I mean, what's the opposite? What's the acronym? I don't even know, Vic. I don't know. Right? Anyway, the opposite, right? I'm not worrying about you, but you said something like people say, oh, Noah, don't worry about your legs. Or you'll find a husband random and you're like, got one. I love to show my legs. Thank you very much. I'm good here. But I feel your love in doing that. It's not even a defensive. I'm fine. It's like, I'm good. And that for me is so generous.

Amy Purdy:

Yeah. Well, thank you. And those are the things because, and when I do, I don't do a lot of kind of, so what they call it is ableism, which is when people assume things about people with disabilities or pity people with disabilities, it's just this kind of mindset of you're less than if you have a disability. And so the things that people will say to try to make you feel better,

Susie Moore:

Oh yeah, that was it.

Amy Purdy:

And you're like, that's okay. I'm good.

Susie Moore:

I'm good. Yeah, I'm actually really good. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Purdy:

And it's interesting because it is, I mean, I even find myself at times kind of, I don't want to say ableist, but assuming that maybe somebody needs my help because they're in a wheelchair and they're opening a door to go out of the grocery store, and I kind of run up and open the door for them, mean, do I do that for everybody? No, but I did that for the person in a wheelchair. Now you can say, well, I'm a nice person and I want to help out. But for that person in a wheelchair, they may not need it at all. They may do this every single day. They're good. So we just at times have this assumption that people need help and we need to be there to be their hero and help them. And so it's kind of a complex dynamic that just happens amongst people, and you really feel it when you do have a disability.

So you have to process it a certain way. And it can be very frustrating at times. It can. So then I just try to approach it in an educational way at times when it does happen. So this just happened, and this is, I don't know, I'll just kind of explain a better way to maybe approach a situation or, because I am thinking of all the people who get this every single day. For me, having two prosthetic legs, I can put pants on and you don't even know. So I can kind of live incognito as much as I want, but maybe for somebody who's in a wheelchair, they don't get that option. And so they deal with this a lot. They deal with people coming up to them just kind of assuming that they need help or that they're not capable of certain things. And so I think it's just really important to change that mindset. And I feel that I have a responsibility to do that because I have such a platform. I don't make it all my platform, but when it authentically happens and I have something to really share about it, I make sure that I do.

Susie Moore:

So Amy, I love to end my interviews with a little rapid fire. And one of the questions I just feel cool to ask now based on what we've been sharing. So if you are up for it, we'll do a little rapid fire fire.

Amy Purdy:

Sure. It's so funny. I'm the worst at rapid fire.

Susie Moore:

Take your time.

Amy Purdy:

I dunno.

Susie Moore:

These are fun and easy, but the one question, but I feel cool to ask. First is when people encounter you and your work, you have a huge breadth of work too. When you even just look at your content, your speeches, your book, so much that you offer, when people encounter any of it or you in person, how do you want them to feel?

Amy Purdy:

I love that empowered. I want them to feel like if she can do this, then I can follow my dreams as well. I think that's really important. I don't want people to just say, oh, it's amazing what she's done. I want them to say, I want them to feel empowered to live their best lives as well.

Susie Moore:

When you were a kid, what would be one word that people who knew you really well would describe you?

Amy Purdy:

Probably sensitive. I've always been a very sensitive kid. I can cry because a puppy dog is cute. I can cry at a sunrise or a sunset. I think that it was kind of looked at a little bit as a weakness. And now I think it's a strength because I'm also empathetic and I appreciate the beauty of life deep enough that it makes me cry.

Susie Moore:

It's a superpower. Sensitive. That's what I think. Sensitive. What's a weird quirk that you have that only your closest friends and family know about?

Amy Purdy:

Oh my gosh. We should ask my husband.

Susie Moore:

Yeah. We should.

Amy Purdy:

I actually don't even know. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty, so I'm not thinking of it. There's not any, I'm sure there's so many of 'em. I'm going to have to ask my husband that I actually, what would a weird quirk of mine be? I mean, it's almost weird that I don't know, but I'm sure

Susie Moore:

Maybe you're really normal with no crazy weird. I've never had, I hear some random, I hear very random answers to this question, by the way, I've never heard anything similar.

Amy Purdy:

Should I ask my husband? So let's go through the rest of this at the end. I'll call him down. And let's ask. I'm very curious what he'll say.

Susie Moore:

A weird question. What's your favorite city?

Amy Purdy:

Oh, my favorite city.

Oh my gosh. Let me think about this for a second. So what is my favorite city? I mean, I've traveled all over the world and yet I don't. Okay. For a very long time. I loved Toronto. I loved how Toronto was set up. It was very easy to navigate and it had such cute little areas. And when I first started speaking, I would get invited to Canada to speak. And so it kind of represents independence and freedom. I'm going down this path by myself, and I would travel around by myself. I just remember Toronto feeling like a very just free place to me because it allowed me to live this life that I dreamed about living. And it's kind of interesting because it all started in Canada. I live in the us, but all my early speeches, I would get invited to Canada to speak before anybody here in the US really cared. But

Susie Moore:

Toronto, I haven't heard that one before. As a favorite city. I've got to go back to Toronto. What would your last meal be? Three courses, each one.

Amy Purdy:

Oh my gosh. Well, this could be an interesting one because it depends on how I would go, because, so I always joke around, so I'm allergic to a lot of food. I'm allergic to shellfish, deathly, I'm allergic to melon and avocado. And so I always joke around with my husband and say, my last meal would just be a shellfish feast because it looks so good. And that would pretty much take me out.

Susie Moore:

It really would be the last meal.

Amy Purdy:

It would be, absolutely. Yeah. But I definitely would. Let's see. I love donuts, but good donuts, not like Winchell's donuts. I like really good. I like crafty everything. I love bakeries that just have really good croissants or I know I'm not really breaking it down, but I like good, rich food, like full fats, everything and things that are baked and where love is put into them. Know when you eat something and you're like, this is the best thing I've ever had. And it's like there's a baker back there making it, and it's just the way they make it and the love they put into it, and you can feel it inside. I would want breakfast and lunch to be that, and then dinner to be probably this avocado, shellfish buffet. And then I would be out.

Susie Moore:

And then over and out. Yeah. What's an item in your home or handbag that you cannot live without?

Amy Purdy:

I love that you said handbag. An Allen wrench, because I'm probably one of the few women that walk around with tools in their purse, and I have to because of my legs. So I walk around with this Allen wrench in my purse, and in fact, it's in my purse. I've got one in every car that we own. I've got almost every floor of the house. We have a condo. I've got Allen wrenches there. Pretty much everywhere you turn, there's always an Allen wrench, including in my purse so that I can tighten my legs. Or every once in a while I'll find out that I'll kind of look down and see that I'm pigeon towed. My toe will go in on the right side, and then I pull out my Allen wrench and I can fix that.

Susie Moore:

Do you ever use it for anything else? Are you ever oddly handy walking past someone who's struggling? You're like, I have a,

Amy Purdy:

I know. No, but I should edit. But what's funny is when you get a group of amputees together and you say, oh man, does anyone have an Allen wrench? Five people will whip it out. It's kind of just in our circle. Everybody's got one, so

Susie Moore:

Oh my gosh, that makes me laugh.  I've never had the Allen wrench. Love. Okay. So besides the quick question, this is normally my last one because it's the Let it be Easy podcast. What's one thing that you do consistently every day that allows, or almost every day that allows your life to be easier?

Amy Purdy:

Lemme think. There's probably, you said one thing, but I'd say there's probably two things. Which first thing in the morning, I really do remind myself how blessed I am, and that makes my life easier because day to day things can get hard, but when you kind of start the day feeling light and grateful and blessed, you're already living your best life. It makes the rest of the day so much easier. It makes whatever comes your way so much easier. And I would say the second thing is working out. Even when I didn't have both my legs, just even over the last couple years, because I was going through all my surgeries, I would work out on the floor. I would do everything that I could with what I had. So I would do sit-ups and pushups and leg lifts and everything that I could, because it really does make everything else easier. And that's something that we can control. And you go to pick up your luggage and you're like, oh, that was easy. Because I've been consistently working out every day, even if I haven't been working out that much. And there's something about when it comes to working out, you see the results and you can feel the results just by that. Something that was hard to do and now you're so capable of doing. And it's because of that little bit of consistency that you have every day of keeping yourself strong. That definitely makes life easier.

Susie Moore:

It's like the holistic with what you've said, it's like the physical strength and the mental strength. Daily, daily, daily. Coming back to it. Because without the consistency, our mind can go to odd places, right? Like places we don't want to play, we can go that I'm the same. I'm very conscious with, am I thinking now? How am I feeling? So every morning it's like a reset each morning for you?

Amy Purdy:

Yes.

Right. It's right. It's putting yourself in the right mindset to approach the day. Otherwise, you just become the mercy of the day things happen to you. And if you're not prepared, and if you're not already kind of, I don't know, feeling uplifted, then it's very easy to go down negative paths. You kind of have to instill those feelings within yourself first and then kind of step into the world that way. And then everything is different that way. It's like you're not taken down this horrible path that you can't come back. You're kind of dictating how you want to feel for that day.

Susie Moore:

Should we find out your weird quirk?

Amy Purdy:

Yes. I want to.

Susie Moore:

I'll wait.

Amy Purdy:

Hey babe. Let's see.

Susie Moore:

She's going upstairs. Yeah. I love these moments where there can be a little interaction, kind of fun. Can you think of one?

Amy Purdy:

He said he is on a call that he will be done in two seconds.

Susie Moore:

Let's wait. Let's wait. I want to wait. Hopefully. It's a really embarrassing one.

Amy Purdy:

I hope so. I hope it's really good.

Susie Moore:

It's so funny all the different quirks that you hear, people really, they share kind of slight obsessive things that they like to do.

Amy Purdy:

I could think of some quirks actually, now that you're kind of giving me ideas.

Susie Moore:

So one weird quirk that I have, I don't know if it's an English thing. I don't think so to my extent, but I love to put vinegar on everything.

Amy Purdy:

Wait, you like to do what?

Susie Moore:

Put vinegar on everything.

Amy Purdy:

I do that a lot too. And Daniel will say that because he'll be like apple cider vinegar for everything.

Susie Moore:

Oh yeah. I just love everything. Just tastes better. Acid for life, acid for life. Right. Hi Daniel.

Daniel:

Hi.

Susie Moore:

Thanks for making a guest appearance on the podcast. Oh, it's so nice to see you. I asked Amy in a rapid fire round, what's a weird quirk that only someone really, really close to you knows about? And she's like, I dunno. Got to ask my husband. So clearly she's very normal with no quirks at all.

Amy Purdy:

I can think of one right now now that you're here, but I'm curious if you have anything to say.

Daniel:

I would say that one of the funniest and funniest is that she likes to deliver speeches in her sleep.

Susie Moore:

Amy so hardworking.

Daniel:

No, she never stops. It's amazing.

Susie Moore:

Is she speaking in her sleep?

Daniel:

She literally will, I mean, lecture after a few sentences it kind of stops. I'll try and keep her going, but she will deliver full on sentences and

Susie Moore:

It's cohesive? You can understand?

Daniel:

Oh yeah. It's great. I'm up taking notes. I'm like,

Susie Moore:

You're getting free speeches there, my friend. Lucky you.

Amy Purdy:

Yes, I do. I deliver lectures in my sleep for sure. It's real and it's real. And I'm always trying to share something with people in my sleep. I'll go through and describe. So we run a nonprofit organization, adaptive Action Sports, and I'll go through and describe every athlete as if I'm standing on stage talking about every single athlete or trying to explain something and I lecture in my sleep. I was also going to say that I use the word show for movie,

Daniel:

And that's very old fashioned. She says, oh, are we going to watch a show tonight?

Amy Purdy:

He's like, you mean a movie, not a show, a movie? I'm like, yeah, a show. But it's just my grandma calls him picture shows. I realized all the women in my family call it show.

Susie Moore:

Thank you, Dan. I hope to meet you one day soon.

Daniel:

I hope so.

Susie Moore:

So

Amy Purdy:

I feel like you have

Susie Moore:

Daniel, I know all about you and I love that you two have this cool nonprofit, right, that where you work. It's so cool. What a beautiful couple. Look at you, sweetie. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you. Thank you. Guest appearance bonus. That was a lovely bonus.

Amy Purdy:

So there I deliver lectures at my sleep.

Susie Moore:

Oh, and Amy, truly, I love you so much. When I was even looking through all the lovely things that you said online, you spoke about getting a second chance at life and living it. And wow. I mean, if I could force everyone to listen to this conversation and to follow your work, I would. And you have something exciting coming up too, which we want to end this show on. Could you tell us what's coming up this fall that we can look forward to from you? Brand new, never done before?

Amy Purdy:

Yes. I've never done this before, so I've had the opportunity to speak all around the world, but unless you're sitting in the audience, you don't really get to be a part of it. And so this is the first time I am doing an event for the public and it's online and it's called Bouncing Forward, awaken the Possibilities with Amy Purdy and it's going to be incredible. It'll be about 90 minutes and we're talking about resilience and how you can be the author to your life story. I'll be sharing my journey and all the different things that I learned along the way. There's also a workbook at the end so that you can take yourself on that journey with journal prompts. And so we'll go through that. There will be a q and a so that we can have a conversation. And I really just want to connect to my audience of people from all around the world who followed me who've never been able to actually sit in one of my speeches. And so this is my way of showing up for you. And in your home coming to you, I'm coming to you.

Susie Moore:

So my friends, this is like a once in a million opportunity. Amy is a very busy book speaker and it's very few people will have this opportunity with you. So I mean this is a must attend and 2022, we need to be resilient. We have no idea what's coming. We've had a rough couple of years. I mean, all of us especially, and you are the person to lead the way to show us bouncing forward. Even just, I just want to smile, even thinking about bouncing forward, resilience, your secrets, you are the person to listen to on this topic. There could be no better teacher or messenger for this, and it's bouncing forward. Amy Purdy, PURD y.com. Once again, bouncing dot amy purdy, PURD y.com. And also Amy Purdy girl on Instagram, one of of my favorite accounts, always smiling. I just look at you. I'm like, yes. I just feel so able to do everything. Yeah, it just makes me smile. I love

Amy Purdy:

That. I love that. Thank you. I'm excited to meet everybody who's listening and so come say hi.

Susie Moore:

Yes, Amy, thank you so much. I could keep you forever, but I hope you'll come back and we could talk more and more about so many other things. I didn't even get so done.

Amy Purdy:

There's so much we could talk about.

Susie Moore:

Yes, so much, Amy. I love you. I love you too. And I'll see you on your live class.

Amy Purdy:

Yes.

Susie Moore:

Bye-Bye for now.