Overcoming Massive Adversity with Little Mind Hacks – Amy Purdy – #686

Don’t miss this special—and slightly longer—episode of Bulletproof Radio. My guest has defied incredible odds throughout her life to accomplish some extraordinary things.

Amy Purdy follows a road of her own making—as a motivational speaker, a New York Times best-selling author, a model, dancer and actress—and also the most decorated American Paralympic snowboarder in history.

She toured the United States with Oprah Winfrey, speaking to stadiums of people about her life: losing both legs at 19.  By sharing her incredible story, she taught others about resilience and inspired them to follow their dreams.

Her life took another turn in 2019—this time a severe health setback. We’re going to talk about what happened and how she hacked her body and mind through her recovery.

When it comes to excruciating pain, adversity, and continually moving forward, Amy has worked through it all with strength and grace.

• Perseverance: “Even when I survived, I think, it made me have to really dig deep and figure out, okay, there’s certain things I can change, there’s certain things I can’t, so I decided to really focus on the things that I could change, I decided to focus on what I could do.”
• Hope: “I still wanted to live a great life. I was still me, I very much so still felt like me. I’m the same person, the same drive, the same aspirations. I wanted to travel, I wanted to snowboard all over the world. I still wanted to do all of that. I just now had to figure out how, and I had to get creative to find a way.”
• Positivity: “It didn’t feel good to have people feel sorry for me. And so I knew that I didn’t want to feel sorry for myself. I thought ‘that’s a bad spot to be in.’ ”
• Mindset: “One major thing that I did was I got really good at compartmentalizing because I was dealing with losing my legs, losing my kidney function and needing a kidney transplant and then losing part of my hearing as well, all at the same time.”
• Focus: “When I think of all my accomplishments, the things that I’ve done in my life, I get very hyper-focused. I kind of shut everything else away and just focus on what needs to be taken care of.”
• Healing: “I started this whole new journey that I’m on of fighting to get back. … I realize the doctors have done what they can. Now it’s up to my body to do the rest and how can I support my body to not just heal but literally do more than that, right? Like grow new connections, create new pathways.”

Don’t miss my hacking recommendation list for Amy in the episode show notes below or my IG Live with Amy; it’s up now on the Bulletproof Radio YouTube channel.