The Mindset That Took Her From 2% Survival Odds to the Paralympics | Amy Purdy - Free Transcript | The School of Greatness

Welcome everyone back to school greatest podcast very excited about our guest...

Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. I'm appreciate it. I've been trying to get you out for like three years now

And we know we made it happen

“Thanks to my persistence and Julian Huff making the introduction and all these other things”

So I'm glad you're here and we're having a lot and you've got a lot going on and I'll tell you a story just before we started on camera Amy stole 25,000 This is from my wallet. She took it from my heart and I was it to tell the story I was you know, I just speaking just like you do a lot of speaking. Yeah, you're your business your brand and This this conference asked me to speak and they were like it's down to you and one of the person

And then they think give it to me the game That was like who is it and you're like Amy pretty. I was like. It's tough to me. It's tough to beat her out. Yeah. Yeah, it's all good

Well, that makes me that I'm actually honored to know what the sounds bad, but they chose me over you because you're so amazing

You know like it was between the two of us it's all good. I look at there's a world of abundance There's many speed opportunities. I'm not worried if we miss one each, but you know that is kind of funny You can put a dollar sign on it You still $25,000 It's all good. Yeah, one day we'll be speaking on the same stage. Yeah, that would be amazing. Let's do it

We'll be happy for those that don't know about your story. You have an incredible story and I want to dive into it

“But Oprah's essentially said you're like the most inspiring person in the world. And that's crazy. It's pretty cool, right?”

I don't know if that's the exact cloak, but it's something like that. I have a different summary. She's like the person to look up to someone she

You're inspired by for her. Yeah, which is pretty cool. It's pretty. It's all the real with all the people that she meets I know. You're her inspiration. You know, it's really, really surreal because she was my inspiration. Right. You know, going through Everything that I went through with losing my legs and, you know, we'll get into that a bit too. Just losing my legs and everything I went through. I mean, I spent a lot of down days recovering and watching Oprah and the people that she had on the show

And, you know, you think, oh my gosh, if those people can get through what they went through, I can get through what I'm going through And then to be sharing the stage with her and actually that the fact that Oprah knows who I am

“You know, it says my name and knows who I am. I mean, I just feel it's so surreal and she's just incredible.”

I mean, you know, she's just a very real human down to earth person, which I love even more. So that's cool. Yeah. Let's break it down for those who don't know your story. You're your 19. You're a regular girl. All right, living in Vegas. Vegas. Yeah. We love the snowboard. You had a regular life. Nothing like too crazy. Nothing too bad. Nothing too out of the Exciting or you're living your life. Yeah. And then one day, what happened? Yeah. So I have to back up real fast. Sure. I said, I was a snowboarder in Vegas and people questioned that often, but I grew up skiing in Vegas because there's

a lot of people on the other side of Vegas. And my family skied. And then I fell in love with snowboarding when I was 15. And I'm just knew that it would be a part of my life forever. Yeah. And I actually, it kind of shaped what what I did after high school. I went to Salt Lake City to become a massage therapist. Because my thought was I could travel the world and snowboard and have this job that would travel with me. I would live in resort towns and, you know, on cruise ships and just see the world with this job. But also snowboard. And so I ended up going back to Vegas after massage school because I got a job out there.

I was saving money to be able to travel and kind of do all that fun stuff. And that's when really my, you know, plans changed. I completely went on a detour. And I got sick with something called meningococcal meningitis. And we have no idea how I got it. All we know is that they say 25% of population carries it. Wow. And it's just a form of meningitis. So there's spinal meningitis. Then there's bacterial meningitis. Spinals not as deadly or bad as bacterial bacterial. Okay. And bacterial is really deadly. We have we really don't know how I got it. It's airborne. So I could have been in an elevator at work and somebody sneezed on me and my body just didn't fight it off because they say it lives on your nose and your mouth.

And it's something we're in contact with all the time, but our immune systems know to fight off. And so, you know, otherwise everybody would be sick from it. And I just happened to be one of those people that for whatever reason, my immune system didn't fight it off. And within 24 hours of my first flu-like symptom and it was just, you know, I just didn't feel good had a slight fever. Just thinking I had the flu within 24 hours of that. I was in the hospital on life support given less than a 2% chance of living.

So fought for my life for, you know, weeks to months after that. And in the hospital still for.

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

Wow, this is in Vegas. This is in Vegas. And I just, I honestly just entered the hospital feeling really sick and had no idea that I'd be, I mean, I was on my deathbed like within 24 hours. I was absolutely fighting for my life.

And put into an induced coma because they didn't know what I had at this point. So I entered the hospital there. No idea what I had except that I was in septic shock.

All my organs were failing and hemorrhaging. Everything but my heart and my brain. So all my other organs were hemorrhaging and not working. And so they put me on life support right away, told my parents I had less than a 2% chance of living. This is in 24 hours. But within those next day, yes, within the next day. And then I was immediately put on put into an induced coma because my body was completely shutting down.

“And that's how they try to kind of stabilize you a little bit.”

It all comes down a little bit because it's not fighting so hard. Yeah, interesting.

Yep. And what does that mean? They just give you a drug or what do they do? How do you go in and they do? They give you some kind of, I forget what it's called, but they do, they give you some kind of thing in your IV. And I remember my, it was really cool. You just go to sleep. Yeah, it was really hard for my parents. You can imagine because, you know, they didn't know if they'd see me again. So this was like, I remember actually was a wake when my dad signed the papers to like basically put me on life support. So you may not wake up. Yeah, this is the only option, essentially.

You're going to, you'll die if we don't do this. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So because I wasn't breathing, I wasn't breathing good. I was, I was gasping for air because my lungs had failed. So I had collapsed. So I, I just remember, you know, gasping for air. And that, and that my dad was signing this paperwork and everyone was crying and that was like my last.

You guys never, oh my God. Yeah. And, but you know, how are you scared?

Well, no, there's always humor and tragedy. And I remember it feeling so surreal. Like an outer body experience and thinking, you guys aren't really taking this a little seriously. You know, even though I was, I didn't, but it was in, it was kind of in the back of my head, even though I was like. Yasmin for air and I'm like, I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm, you know, but in the back of my mind, somehow there was this disconnect of like everybody here thinks I'm going to die and isn't that a little. I don't know a serious for the situation. There's something, and it maybe it was like a separation of, you know, like you're, I don't know. It's like a survival thing of not thinking that you think you feel like it.

“You feel like you're dying, but then you're questioning, am I really dying, you know. So yeah, it was, so I remember that and actually my feet were really, really cold because I had septic shocks.”

You go into septic shock when your body pulls blood from your extremities to save your organs, and that's what was happening. So I was losing circulation to my hands, to my feet, to my nose, my ears and my chin. Like tingly feeling or like numbing. I mean, I had no feeling freezing cold and purple, like just literally overnight, like it happened really, really fast. But my feet hurt so bad. So right before they put me into this induced coma, I asked my dad or I like demanded to see my feet because I remember saying, my feet hurt so bad.

Can I see what's going on? And my dad was like, your feet are the least of our worries here, but I demanded to see my feet. And so my dad pulled the sheets back and my feet were literally purple. And what are they hurt? Yeah, right. They're losing all circulation. And then I went into the induced coma. So that's my very last memory.

“You can even remember that. You know, I remember so much of that time, you know, you would think that you would kind of black it out because it's a traumatic time.”

I remember so many details. It's really interesting. So yeah, I ended up in that induced coma for about two and a half weeks. And then you're kind of in and out, you know, like I was awake. And then all of a sudden you kind of slip back into it. You're in and out for a little bit. Another like week or so. And then, but I still was on life support when I woke up. I still, because I was in kidney failure. My spleen had burst and was removed. My kind of everything was out of whack. And so I was still hooked up to machines when I awoke from the coma. I still had tubes down my throat because my lungs had collapsed and needed help breathing.

And so I was awake during a period of time where I was hooked up to like a whole room of machines. But aware of what was going on.

Oh my gosh.

And that was from the septic shock. So they did everything they could to try to bring me out of that septic shock to try to get more circulation to my feet.

“Because that's just a natural. It's pretty amazing. It's a natural response to your body trying to save itself is your organs are failing. So let's pull blood from your extremity is to save your organs.”

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

So when you woke up the first time, did you already lose your legs or? No. So I woke up and my feet at this point were the bottom of my feet were black and my toes. Like, kind of like snowboarding. I know, but to the extreme, but yeah, I mean, like frostbite really like you just if I mean, yeah, they're the balls of my feet or the the souls of my feet. And my toes had just, I mean, zero circulation, the tops of my feet. They were dead. Absolutely. The tops of my feet were purple, fish and you know, they were at that point it actually wasn't.

It was really weird. It was painful before, you know, when I first entered the hospital, but when I woke up from the coma, it wasn't painful.

It was just confining. I just wanted to move my toes. I wanted to like feel the error between my toes and just felt like, you know, like, I couldn't. I could kind of move my feet. I could kind of move my toes, but I was every day losing the ability to do that. And so then I, it was a couple weeks after I woke up from that coma. First of all, they tried to save my feet. It was pretty much my feet. It's above the ankle about two inches is where I was affected. And so they tried to save, I always say my legs because now I'm in actual prosthetic legs, but they, they wanted to bring me to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to try to infuse my tissues with oxygen, but I was too unstable.

I kind of moved me from my hospital bed or anything. And then they would, you know, do they bring in physical therapists and massage and rub creams that are really bad for you, but that like bring blood flow. They were doing everything they could and ultimately just they knew that if they didn't amputate, if they didn't amputate my feet that it would spread, yeah, it's because it turns into gangrene, basically, and gangrene can spread really, really fast within minutes to hours. It's just suddenly once it hits, you're kind of trying to your amputate and higher and higher.

So I have to say though, I got lucky, I know a lot of people who either died from meningococcal meningitis or survived it, but lost their legs to their hips, you know, their arms and their legs, and it's because that gangrene set in really fast for them. I for whatever reason had five weeks where it didn't set in. And so that was, they were, you know, doing everything they could, but then they knew by blood tests that it was about ready to. So I just remember the doctor coming in and saying, we have to do this tomorrow, we have to amputate your legs tomorrow.

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

I was just ready. You know, there's certain things that you, there's no debate, but this is what has to happen to survive. So let's make a lot of my legs off. Right. Oh my gosh. So imagine what that'd be like, you can't, and I could have never imagined.

But when you're in that moment in the pain, you're just diving for your life and there wasn't a lot of pain.

It was good. But there was survival. I mean, I was absolutely in survival. Go on a different mode, probably. Totally different line. You're everything. Yeah. Interesting. And here, I'm an emotional person just by nature. Like, I, I mean, I could look at a sunset and cry. Okay, I might say you looked up the photo on you. Yeah, look at that photo. There could flag it here. Yeah. And I want to cry. So you would think that I would be the biggest baby in that situation, but somehow I was probably stronger than, you know, the majority of my family.

And they were the ones who were still heartbroken and crying. And I was kind of like, do what you got to do. So I can move on with my life. Everything's going to be fine. I'll figure it out.

“Wow. I just had that some kind of faith and conference confidence that that was going to be the case. But, you know, it's weird. You just survival mode is an interesting thing. You cut the motion out of it. That's what it is.”

You know, you're not like, you know, it's sad. Crying about your legs, like, I got to move on. Yeah, you're like, so I got to do whatever I have to do in this moment.

Sure.

The punny rabbit if you had to, you would just be like, well, I got to eat it.

“Right. I can't cook it or whatever. And you probably have a period of time of the emotional, like, is it's the attachment of things?”

And then exactly, then you go into, like, survival, like, beast mode and that. We rip a salad with it. Whatever. It's like, Bear Grills stuff. Crazy. And I read somewhere that you kind of had, like, a moment when you were either in your coma, where you, like, so you're either going to go into, like, death or come back to life was like, that's thing you saw people, there's three people or something. Yeah. So, you know, I really don't tell the story very much.

I've never met anyone who had, it's had a story like this, who would they like, seen the light in your dead experience. Yeah.

“It's shaped my life. So that's why it's, it's so important for me. So when I was, when I was in the coma that I was in, and I was, it was that first week, which was the most critical when I was in the hospital.”

So it was really kind of touching go as far as I was hooked up to all these machines. And this is just, you know, I heard this from my nurses, doctors and parents because I was out of it, obviously, but my blood pressure would crash and my heart rate would shoot up. It was 244 beats per minute, and I actually stayed that way for about a week and a half, just fluttering in my chest. And for one, they said, if I wasn't as young as I was or as strong as I was because I was working out a lot at that time, that my heart probably wouldn't have been able to sustain that.

But so my blood pressure would crash, my heart rate would go up, then my heart rate would crash, my blood pressure would go up, and it was just this constant all day for, you know, a couple days there. I've just, not being on the edge that they think that I was going, bring my whole family in everybody and start praying, all the sudden I'd come back yet. There was a lot of that that happened, and then they had to come in with the chest shockers and shock my heart back into the rhythm.

And so the first few days for my family was just, I mean, every, yeah, every five minutes was a kind of a different story for those few days.

And so at the same time, apparently my stomach started to get kind of bigger and and they were taking my blood and realizing that my red blood count was low, so they realized I was internally bleeding. And here I was so unstable as it was those hooked up to all these machines. They couldn't even, I actually remember this at one point for summaries and I remember this, I remember like, you know when you, okay, you know when you're falling asleep and you dream that you fell off a cliff for something you jumped.

Yeah, I remember having a moment like that and my finger twitching and hearing all the machines in the room go off and I'm slamming my hand down because just that motion made my whole body go out of whack.

“So that's why they had me in that induced coma was to kind of paralyze me to not move at all.”

But I was that unstable and then they had to move me into cat scan to see what was going on. And I guess it took an entire day and like eight doctors to move me from the hospital bed to the cat scan bed because they had to move just finger, like finger tip by finger tip without, you know, disrupting my heart aid and all that stuff. And so once they got me to cat scan, they found out that my spleen was about ready to burst. It was 10 times it's normal size and so they rushed me immediately into into surgery and I mean at that point, my parents and my family thought, you know.

Well, they, I mean it was a good, I was absolutely going to die if I didn't do the surgery, but there's a huge chance I was going to die by doing the surgery because I was so unstable as it was. The amputee or this for my spleen. Oh wow. Sorry. So my first has my surgery. Yes. This is a surgery for somebody. Yeah. So my spleen was 10 times it's normal size and bleeding internally bleeding internally. So I didn't hearing this. I know. Yeah, if you have any kind of weird like needle medical blood, you know, phobias that it's probably not the story.

But anyway, so I was Russian to emergency surgery so they could remove my spleen and I remember being in that surgery. So even though I was in a coma, I remember being in that surgery. And I remember actually looking up, even though my eyes were taped shut and everything, I remember it was a bit of an outer body experience because I remember looking up seeing the doctor hearing what the doctors and the nurses were talking about. I remember that doctor, his name is Dr. Abby. I write about him quite a bit in my book because he's just a really important part of my life, but I remember Dr. Abby whispering in my ear.

He said, Amy, whatever it is, you believe in think about that now.

I don't talk about this very much, but so he said, think about that now. Whatever religion, whatever it is, you believe in hanging on to that right now. And before you're going under. Yeah. And I remember, well, I was under. I was already under. I was in a coma. Gotcha. This was kind of an outer body thing. This was like a beginning of this near death experience thing. So I remember him whispering that to me. You know, he's not necessarily aware that I'm aware that he was saying that, but I remember him saying that.

And I remember thinking, so he said, everything, you know, whatever it is, you think whatever it is, you believe in think about that right now.

“And I remember just the first thing that popped my head as I thought, I believe in love. I believe in love.”

And I was raised. It was kind of interesting. I was raised kind of kind of Mormon because my grandparents were Mormon. And so I'd go to church with them every other Sunday, but I wasn't really raised in a Mormon household, but I knew a bit of that religion.

But I also knew that my friends had different religions. And I never felt religious, but I always felt spiritual.

And it's just interesting in that moment when I was asked, what is it, you believe in, like, I believe in love. You know, I think love is the creator of everything and what it boils down to in the end. And so I thought of that and then all the sudden, so my heart was beating out of my chest and I could feel it. I could feel it fluttering in my chest.

“And I thought I was actually in open heart surgery because I remember feeling the doctor with no pain, but I remember that pressure feeling him cut me open from my sternum down to my belly button.”

Oh, gosh. But there was no pain. It was just, like, I could feel the skin and everything pressure can hurt the tension or everything. The tension and I thought I was in heart surgery because my aunt has the same scar and she had heart surgery when she was young. And I could feel my heart beating in my chest and I was thinking, okay, he's here to fix my heart. But, but anyways, as my heart was beating, it was beating faster and faster and faster and faster. And I just, I felt like I was hanging on by my fingertips, just on a cliff.

And, you know, every time my heart hit a beat, I felt like I was going closer and closer to the edge. I mean, I was absolutely hanging on for a dear life. And then all the sudden, I remember feeling my last heartbeat.

And it was incredibly powerful and just knocked the breath out of me. And suddenly, I was in the space and in the dark space.

And I saw a light, but it wasn't a bright light. It was kind of a dimmed green haze. But there was just enough of a light to see that there were three silhouettes. And I didn't recognize these silhouettes. And there were very basic, you know, there wasn't any details except I could see their hands going like this, like in a kind of, kind of come here motion. And they were saying to me, you can come with us or you can stay. And I remember getting so frustrated and thinking, I haven't lived my life yet. I haven't fallen in love yet. I haven't traveled the world yet.

I haven't, like, I love life. I haven't done all these things that I always thought that I would do.

And I remember getting just so frustrated and screaming, no, like every cell in my body, I was like, I'm not going anywhere. And right then this really bright light said, this I can say was the brightest white light I've ever seen was sitting over my right shoulder. And it was basically saying, kind of like, okay, you choose to stay.

“And, you know, your life is going to be challenging, but there's there's basically there's I'm putting this in my own words, but because I can't remember exactly the words, but basically there's going to be”

Mountain tops and valleys, you know, there's going to be constant up and down, but just know that it will all make sense in the end. And that's so clear to me that it will all make sense in the end. And so when I woke up from the coma that I was in, that was my first thought of what I had gone through. And I think that faith of whatever it is, just knowing that no matter how challenging life gets, no matter what our circumstances are, that it is all going to make sense in the end. That is what helped to get me through the toughest days of my life.

Wow. Where do you think it be right now if it's didn't happen to you or for you? You know, exactly, I love that. I don't know because I certainly didn't know how, you know, like passionate or strong or motivated I was. I don't know if that all just engaged after I went through everything or if it was always kind of, and I know it was always in me, it's just bringing it out.

I mean, I wanted to be a massage therapist, travel the world.

And now that is exactly what I'm doing just in a completely different way than I ever expected.

Yeah, yeah, now I get my songs ready. We're just even better. But, but you know, I think we all want to make a difference in the world somehow. Like we all have a drive to actually just to do something and live a fulfilling life and hopefully positively affect people. And now I'm doing that because of what I went through, you know, I used to want to move to LA out here because I thought I want to act and I want to do all this stuff, but I think what I was craving was, I just I just wanted to do something and I guess it's I think some of it is being recognized for something.

You know, I think maybe everybody feels that and when I was younger, I used to think it's, oh, beyond TV. And now I realize, no, it's actually connecting with people.

“Like that's what, that's what I want, you're sharing this love and encouragement and positivity and whatever that energy is between people. That's, I think, something that we all want, maybe without knowing it.”

And once you are able to do that, like we're able to do through speaking, you're like that's what it is so fulfilling. Yeah, so, okay, so after you had that experience and then you had to, you know, remove your legs, essentially kind of part of your life is above the knee below the knee. Below the knee, it's right above the ankles. Is that better if it's below the knee because then you have the joint to be able to still use yes, it's above the knee a bit much harder way harder. Yes, below the knee is a blessing.

Wow, it's good. Yeah. And so when you, this happens and you wake up and they're not there. What are you thinking?

Yes, and then I, I remember the day the doctor came in and said, if we don't, it basically said,

If we don't annotate here and he pointed pointed to my ankles, then he said, we'll have to annotate 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. I know, and it's so crazy because how do you wrap your head around? Oh, like good. And you know what's about to happen?

Yeah. Not going to be there.

“Yeah, and you have no idea what your life is going to be like.”

You know, I actually visualize the only amputees I'd ever seen were like, you know, and it's sad. We're Vietnam vets on the corner in a wheelchair with a sign. And I thought that's the only vision I have in my head of what life is like as a leg amputee. And I was getting ready to have that happen to me. But I remember I gave myself, I gave myself kind of three goals as I was going into the, like literally as they were really 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. Yeah. And I knew that, well, one of those goals was that I was going to snowboard that year. And I guess I now 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 and tell I'm there.

I have three 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.

You know, I saw a lot of be okay with it. Yeah. And then the third goal, you know, it's funny. I've all the sudden I'm spacing the third goal as I'm sitting here. So it was, yeah, well, you'll have to read my book and you'll see the third one.

“But I think, you know, the idea there is just that I needed something to fill in control of.”

And to get me through that experience, something to look forward to. Guys said, I would do this. I said, I would snowboard this year. So I'm going to do that. And so I, yeah, I was wheeled in the amputated my legs above the ankles. And, and then that was when a whole new, I stepped into a whole new life in journey. Wow. So did you snowboard them that year?

I did. I snowboarded. So I snowboarded about, I'd say, seven months after I lost my leg. 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. You know, if you can imagine, you keep your feet flat and you can bench your knees to the floor, right? That's how you jump or that's how you, you know, get an athletic stance.

With prosthetic legs, our ankles don't bend.

I mean, even really the best prosthetics or 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.

I was kind of slipping around.

“And then as we were on the chair lift 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 in a 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. And it was. Yeah, what if I can't. And so that was kind of a frightening chair lift right to the top. But when I got off the lift, I was able to kind of cruise on my board.

You know, you stop, you buckle in, so all that went okay. And then I got up and I was just able to kind of point my board and go straight. You know, felt completely different, kind of fill my feet at all. And then I remember I carved on my heel edge and everything felt okay. And then I went to carve on my toe edge.

And that's when I realized, oh, my gosh, my ankles don't bend. I can't really get to my toes. But I ended up hitting this bump. And my, my beany 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. Oh, my gosh.

I kind of broke into pieces. And meanwhile, you know, I'm sitting at the top of the mountain totally embarrassed. Just like it had no idea that, you know, I would worry about my legs actually falling off. Yeah. And my friend hike down the mountain and pick my legs up attached to this snowboard.

And hike them back up.

“And what's funny is somebody on the chairlift screamed because, you know, I'm sure it was.”

Didn't know it was like. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You're like, oh, my God. And I'm sure she wrapped up years at therapy bills.

Oh, my God. And I'm sure she wrapped up years at therapy bills. She wrapped up years at therapy bills. She wrapped up years at therapy bills. She wrapped up years at therapy bills.

She wrapped up years at therapy bills. She wrapped up years at therapy bills. She wrapped up years at therapy bills. She wrapped up years at therapy bills.

She wrapped up years at therapy bills.