Wake Up With Marci

Welcome to wake up with Marcy a deep dive into self-discovery I’m your host Marcy Hopkins and this is the space where we get real about life transformation and finding our true selves. Hello and welcome to wake up with Marcy if you’re here you’re seeking self-discovery resilience and the confidence to overcome life’s toughest challenges. I’m Marcy Hopkins your host and I’m so excited to embark on this journey with you today talking about something we all face how to find strength joy and resilience in the midst of adversity and my guest today has certainly done that.

Welcome Amberly Lago it’s so incredible to have you today. She is an internationally renowned speaker best-selling author and TEDx sensation. She was told after a horrible accident that she would only have a 1% chance of using her leg but Amberly refused to let her circumstances define her instead she turned her pain into a mission to inspire others to find strength and joy no matter what life throws their way. Amberly’s story is one of perseverance mindset and the power of never giving up and may we all adopt that mindset. So let’s dive in and wake up to our true strength with Amberly Lago.

Welcome to wake up girl it’s so good to see you thank you for that wonderful introduction I have to say I was like smiling real big when you said Ted X sensation I was like oh wow she talking about me. You know what I that is so incredible I have just started my journey of my TEDx talk so totally how was that for you are you are you doing one yeah I’m gonna do one awesome when are you years I’m hoping 2025 oh that is awesome yeah it was on my bucket list and I had thought about it and it was actually my very first talk on stage and so you know most people talk on stages for a long time and then do a TEDx talk and I had a curator reach out to me to do my TEDx talk and at first I thought it was a joke was through a DM on Instagram and she had actually been following my journey and she wasn’t just looking at what I was posting she was looking at the way that I was responding to people through my comments and um so she reached out through a DM and I was like yeah I’m interested and I gave her my email and she emailed me and I was like oh my goodness this is legit and it was at Berkeley for their 10th anniversary which is a huge one and it was a sold out event there were 2500 people it is the most beautiful stage still to this day that I’ve ever spoken on I mean it gorgeous but yeah intimidating.

Oh yeah I was scared I was going over my talk over and over and over because it’s so much different preparing a talk in 14 minutes versus you’ve got an hourlong keynote it’s much easier to do an hourong keynote than it is to get really precise know your transitions know your open and close and making them powerful and do a TED talk so it was such an amazing experience and I was so glad I got to take my daughter with me and the curators let my daughter sit in the very front row in the center and it just I love those videos of her she would like video me and then she would put the phone on her and she’d be like wow and then video me again oh it was just such a proud mom moment you know.

Oh my God and and she was proud how old was she oh my goodness she was like 11 years old no wow she and now she doesn’t want to go with me I’m like I’m like Ruby do you want to go to New York with me I’m gonna be on the NASDAQ and she’s like oh no mom I’ve already been to New York with you there’s no grass there it’s all concrete yeah yeah that I mean it does shift and change a lot and then it shifts again and uh my daughter’s 19 but I want to talk about what brought you to that stage I mean you talk about how intimidating that was but you were in a near fatal accident were told that you weren’t going to be able to use your leg oh I was told I was going to be it was going to be lose your leg right but you said no you said no to that and you fought and fought and fought and that is the real fight right there so can you share more with us about that.

Yeah and you know thank you for bringing that up because it just made me think of something you know I was so nervous so intimidated to get on that stage I was the only person that didn’t have a PhD and I don’t even have a college education and um one thing that helped me was I had a client of mine and I was telling her how nervous I was and she said Amberly you went through 34 surgeries and came out walking she goes you can go stand on a stage and talk and I was like oh that really helped it put things in perspective but yeah I never would have imagined I would have been you know I would I would write books and um I never would have imagined that I would be speaking all over the world changing lives all the time Amberly from your experience yeah oh well I’m just I am just so grateful and so blown away and right before I got on the call with you I had a friend of mine who it was going through the airport in Nashville and she goes Amberly look your book is front and center at the airport and I was like what like that is just wild to me.

But it all started when my life was completely turned upside down I mean I was in the fitness industry doing fitness videos infomercials sponsored by Nike and in a blink of an eye my whole life changed when I was coming home from work on my motorcycle and I was hit by an SUV. I was thrown and I was sliding across the asphalt and when I came to a stop I looked down at my leg and it was just completely broken into pieces my femoral artery was severed I didn’t know that at the time I just saw that there was blood everywhere and luckily I had a guy come over and make a tourniquet around my leg right away and he saved my life and I was rushed to the hospital and put in induced coma because they couldn’t control my pain and I’d lost so much blood that my organs were shutting down and um when I woke up out of a coma over a week later uh they said I’m so sorry there’s nothing we can do for you we need to amputate your leg it’s like a war wound you’ve got a 1% chance of saving it so I’m just so sorry and I said wait a minute you said there’s a 1% chance so then there’s a chance and that was my glimmer of hope it got me through just surgery after surgery now I never imagined it would be 34 surgeries but that’s what it took to piece by piece put my leg back together and I spent months in the hospital and you know had thousands of hours of excruciating physical therapy.

In fact once I was okay enough to not have the physical therapist come to the house I was going to physical therapy 5 days a week and I could tell that something was going on because they would work on me and then the owner and the physical therapist would go over in the corner and they would start whispering and I was always like well I know I look like a mess but what are they saying you know and they didn’t they wouldn’t tell me so I finally went to a doctor’s appointment and he took a look at me and he ran out the door and I’m like okay I know I look terrible but like seriously like what are people trying to hide from me what is going on yeah what’s happening and he walks back in and he examined me and he said I you’ve got something very serious you’ve got an incurable disease it’s called complex regional pain syndrome and your life is never going to be the same he goes you need to get back in your wheelchair and I was like okay for how long and he said no for forever and what exactly is that um it is a nerve disease and it’s caused um by trauma and um it leaves you in constant chronic pain.

In fact right now sitting here I mean I still have pain I’ve tried every kind of treatment and in fact sitting here I’ve got my right shoe off and my right foot is just throbbing um and so I’ve tried everything for pain I mean eastern western medicine at one point I was on 73 homeopathic pills and 11 prescription medications I have flown out of the country for radical treatments I have I was $2.9 Million worth of medical debt and nothing was working for the pain and um that’s when I really the true healing began because it took me down a dark path and coming out of that and finding ways to spark Joy despite pain and what I’ve learned is that you know it’s not until well when I get rid of this pain I’m G to find Joy or when I achieve that accomplishment I’m G to find Joy or when I move to that place or get there and or get the job or get the right relationship then I’ll have joy I’ve learned that um Joy is something that we choose it is really grounded in gratitude and being so like in our purpose and in our passion and that’s what allows us to spark joy and and I learned that Joy and Pain can coexist.

Because you shared with me I want to just get back a little bit when you were in the when uh you were in the hospital a a few things came to mind the first thing right now there are so many people that are told by doctors You’ll Never Walk again you’ll only live about this amount of time you’ve got this disease you’ve got that disease which maybe they do maybe they don’t maybe they will walk maybe they won’t what do you say to someone because there’s so many that just trust that a doctor knows it all how can you I mean you must have felt something inside yourself like no this isn’t this isn’t happening to me.

When I was diagnosed um well first of all in the hospital when they told me they were going to amputate my leg the only thing I focused on was that 1% and there was a chance I didn’t focus on focus on a chance there’s a chance yeah there’s hope I was not focused on the 99% chance that they wouldn’t be able to save it I was only focused on the 1% chance and I was doing everything that I could to be the best and do the best that I could mentally spiritually physically so I was praying I was you know practicing gratitude I was eating everything so clean cuz if my sugar levels got over 125 I was going to have to take insulin and it would increase my risk of infection and they you know and I knew I was fighting the clock so I had a certain amount of time before the bone would die and they would have to amputate so the Clock Was ticking and I was just trying to be the best patient that I could and I was focused on one day at a time.

And the other thing you shared with me Amber and I want to make sure that you share this is that that gratitude practice that you had every day right about your nurse or about whatever it was can you share a little bit about that because it’s it’s hard to find that when you are going through a really difficult time. It is and I’m not going to sit here and and pretend like it was easy it was hard but I know what it did for me and it changed my whole mindset and it’s something that I practice every day still to this day um and I say practice because I know some days are hard and there are real challenges and there are authentic catastrophes you know that people are going through but I am just saying that from the moment I wake up I have to shift my mindset with gratitude because sometimes I’m in so much pain that the pain actually wakes me up sometimes it’s with the usually it’s with the first step that take that there’s so much pain that I have to ease into walking and I could easily listen to that voice in my head that says see you’re not strong enough you’re not good enough who who do you think you are just get back in bed just give up like those thoughts come in and I immediately shift that that those thoughts I switch I like flip the script right away and I’ve trained myself to flip the script on it and I say I am so so grateful that I can get up out of this bed I’m so grateful that I’m not in the hospital anymore I’m so grateful that I have my leg I’m so grateful that I get to go to the bathroom on my own and I don’t have to use a bed pan it’s like the little things.

And then I have a practice with a group of ladies we call ourselves the God Squad and we write we use an app I’m not affiliated with this app at all but it’s called My spiritual toolkit and I love it because it allows me to write 10 things I’m grateful for then I can go click one button and it shares it with my girlfriends and I think tell me what that is I’m sorry what is that oh no it’s okay it’s called My spiritual toolkit I love that and I don’t know I think it’s like a $1.99 a year or something like that but I love it because there’s prayers in there there’s a daily reading from a daily reflections I mean it’s a sober um it’s a recovery app but you don’t have to be in recovery or sober to use the app it’s just really nice to be able to practice that gratitude because it’s one thing to be grateful and to feel it but when you write it down it’s very cathartic and then when you share it with others and you have that accountability it really does shift your day and when you can see what somebody else is grateful for wow the other day you know I have one of my friends she survived cancer and it came back oh was grateful that her chemo treatment was an easier treatment and I was like wow I can I’m just in a little pain like really finding what she’s grateful for yeah but it just shows you can because people go through difficult times every single day it is part of life it is what we do through those times that make the difference and how we respond how long it takes us to get through it.

And you know I too you know I’m just about to to celebrate 10 years of sobriety healing from all of my pain um and my trauma which are much different than what you had to go through but we all have our own story and it is the practice of gratitude it’s my spiritual connection it’s before I even get out of bed that I connect to God and and do a practice of gratitude and and it’s it is something that you have to do every single day because it is a way of thinking it is truly a way of thinking and just like building a muscle or doing anything else you’ve got to work at it and it’s a a continued practice so yeah you you can really change you can train your mind to focus on the good with gratitude and I have actually trained myself to do Joy spotting meaning hunting for the joy like looking for the little moments of joy in the day and whether that is like you know we have a a crazy storm going on right now like tornado warning we’ve got 60 M hour winds hell thunderstorms yet I can hear the wind chime outside I can hear it too it’s nice oh you can hear it oh my goodness well I love it because it was it’s in memory of my dad well it’s he actually my stepdad but he was really like a dad to me we texted every single day and I hear that wind Chim and it makes me think of him and so it brings me joy you know yeah could be anything from a sunrise to hearing birds sing or a song or just the smell of fresh baked cookies whatever it is but I think it’s important to really hunt for the good uh search for the joy and it just lights you up with joy even more.

I do that especially if I’m taking a walk uh I always like to to encourage people not to always have something on don’t always have music on don’t always always have a podcast on don’t always be on the phone like look around because every time I try to just take in like a bird sitting on the tree or listening to the birds or just being really conscious and mindful of what is around you because there’s so much Beauty in nature and being connected to that and that’s when you get like your your deepest um connections and and some great intuitive hits. I think so too and you know what’s really helped me with this doing that getting outside more because I actually was in a place where I work was going good I mean I was booked out I was traveling I was back to back with meetings and interviews and opportunities Blessed Like truly blessed yeah but on like the brink of burnout and I had get back to basics of not missing my recovery meetings of getting on my knees and praying in the morning of really sticking to my gratitude practice and doing things like I had to get intentional and think about like well what does bring me joy and you know and and being in nature brings me joy and so I just got a new puppy for my birthday and it’s really been so awesome I mean there are moments that aren’t so awesome like I was gonna say you can get a lot from that like she when she she used the bathroom in in my room while I was on a a call for the news on on on NBC yeah and I was like oh no my arms are like I don’t know if you can see but they’re they’re little teeth marks all over my arms yeah yeah going outside today in between calls with her and seeing her just run and have fun yeah it just and it we had like a little window of no rain and that sun actually came out a little bit and I was like oh my goodness the sun’s out and I’ve got my little puppy that’s just so happy and running around and splashing in the water puddle and I didn’t even care that she was getting muddy I was like she was having a ball and it just brought me joy it’s like the littlest things in life you know.

It is and that again going back to those little things um and it’s so interesting even when we say the little things they’re really huge I mean just things we take for granted so there’s some things that I want to get to your book in a second but you know talking about self-discovery and being authentic to yourself like what to you what does that mean to you and and how can you encourage others to begin that practice for themselves what can they do. Oh being true to you well I learned this the hard way cuz I was in denial I was stuffing down the pain I didn’t want anybody to see my scars to know that something was wrong with me I did not want them to know that I was in pain that I had a nerve disease I just wanted to be back to where I was and I realized that res first of all resilience isn’t going back it’s choosing to move forward it’s choosing courage to move forward and have a life of joy and happiness and what I think it takes to really be free and to really have the life that you’ve always imagined is to get radically honest with yourself and take a good hard look at your life and that’s what I had to do I had to accept the scars I had to accept this baffling nerve disease I had to accept that I went from being an athlete to a fullblown alcoholic trying to self-medicate to drown out the pain um and once I did it was freedom I mean truth will kick your butt a little bit but then it will set you free but I think that when you can be radically honest with yourself and it it really puts you in the driver’s seat of your life it allows you to take action steps with grit it allows you to give yourself Grace and it also allows you to connect connect with the right community and when you were in line in alignment with your heart and soul and you are being honest and you are in Integrity you are going to connect with the right people you are going the right doors are going to open the right people will come into your life um and so I think the first step for truly being authentic to yourself is getting real with yourself.

Yeah yeah I you know one of the things for me I was always looking for validation outside of myself and always looking for people trying to be the chameleon for everyone else because I couldn’t look at myself right feel the feels feel the feelings and just really you know go head on with those feelings and it’s hard it’s hard but when you start sitting with it and forgiving yourself if if that’s what’s needed or forgiving others or whatever anger for instance you had like letting go and forgiving there’s so much power in that and you get your power back and you stop focusing on the old stories and it allows you to really start connecting to yourself and and finding those things that give you Joy the things that give you Joy what comes from inside not outside of yourself.

And so that brings me to your book Joy through the Journey which just released February 11th so congratulations thank you oh goodness so tell us a little bit about the book what can we expect. Well I have had a sticky note on my computer I had a sticky note for two years that had the title of my book so it was always on my heart to write this book but it was just like really on the back burner really on the back burner and I thought if I ever have you know do this book or whenever I do this book I want Wy to publish it because Wy has published my favorite authors all of his books he’s on his 32nd book and um I get an email from Wy Publishers and I get a book deal and then I asked my favorite author John Gordon to write forward and John’s become a friend of mine but he’s kind of he was like I was staying at his house and this is before I asked him to write the forward and um we were having breakfast checking email and he goes yeah I’m done writing forwards for books and I was like Dam man so I waited a little while and then I asked him and he said yes and I cried I would just cried I was like thank you so much.

But I really wanted to write a book about about how to really find Joy through the Journey despite pain despite hardships despite going through some really tough either roadblocks challenges whether it’s through your business your health whatever because in the book I share all kinds of stories from um my sobriety journey to my entrepreneurial journey to you know you talked about forgiveness talked about how forgiving um can really allow you you know to to spark more joy in your life but I wanted to write a book that was totally different from my first book so my first book True Grit Grace is all about it’s a memoir meant to inspire and this is a self-help book I’m no guru I’m no therapist and I just share it real raw and authentic on some pretty embarrassing things some pretty shameful things that actually I did where I was on the brink of burnout and and what I did to overcome it and have joy and like get my joy back because I W I was in a place where I had I was losing the joy and I was always a pretty joyful person and um I wanted to give a book that would tell a story tell how to get through hard times and then have actionable steps in the back of each chapter so it’s not just something that you’re going to read that’s going to inspire you it’s really going to you’re going to be able to apply these things into your life.

What do you say to someone though that’s like oh that you’re full of crap my you know my life is so hard and and I I don’t know how to do this I mean why what how am I gonna make sure I’m sure there are a lot of people out there going you are full of crap you have no idea what I’m going through exactly exactly and I want to say yeah I do but but I I remember so um I remember the day that I was told that I could wait there on my leg because I was completely bed bound for three and a half months my leg was held together by metal bars and I could literally only stand up for a second at a time on one leg because the blood would rush down to the other leg and because the veins and arteries had been so compromised the blood would get stuck down there and the nerves were were all compromised too and it the pain was so excruciating that I would get back into bed hold my leg up and so I was real excited when I could finally stand on my leg because it had been months and I remember being in physical therapy and in physical therapy oh everybody was just kind of sad I mean they’re going through overcoming surgeries and stuff like that rehabing knees and ankles and hips and but they were just most everybody not everybody but most everybody was in that victim mentality like why me so hard and I thought well I’m gonna make it my mission to go into physical therapy and to say hi to people and to smile and to ask them how they’re doing and to just bring some joy into physical therapy and so I did.

And I was in physical therapy so much that I still have a key to the place but Terry one day my therapist goes uh Amberly I’ve got a guy he had an accident very similar similar to yours he was on his motorcycle and he wants to meet you and I was like well yeah bring him on in I’d love to meet him yeah so I go into Physical Therapy the next day the guy’s there and I’m like well hey how you doing and I was like watch this and I like am so proud I walk around in the center of the physical therapy place in a circle with the biggest smile on my face and he looks at the therapist and he goes what’s wrong with her doesn’t she know why is she so happy doesn’t she know how bad this is yeah and the thing is I wasn’t focused on how my leg was deformed how I could barely walk I focused on I wasn’t even focused on the pain I was focused on I am out of this wheelchair I’m am off of of my crutches I don’t have to use a walker I can use bathroom on my own I am walking I was so happy and so I know when it’s really hard I focus on well what what can I be grateful for what can I learn from this how is it a blessing in my life what are the blessings in my life um and it changes everything but you have to focus on the right thing.

I have a family member who man the glass is always half empty always half empty yeah and so now when I talk to them I know it’s going to be negative and man it sucks the energy out of you because tried to pour some passion and inspiration and positivity and it’s like I’m talking to a wall yeah and so now when I talk to them the first thing I say is tell me something good so immediately they’re like oh it’s good like you know it gets them focused on the good yeah and so I think it’s all what we put our focus on it’s not ignoring the challenges it’s not ignoring the pain it’s acknowledging it but then asking yourself well what brings me joy.

And I’ll tell you one more thing I had my dog of 14 years that was my therapy dog this dog went everywhere with me was by my side through all my surgeries and she died was in perfect health her whole entire life and although she was older she died unexpectedly it was really traumatic I’m the one that found her I was devastated I had no idea this 2 and 1 half pound ball of fur could like give so much unconditional love and just the grief that I would experience when she passed away and I couldn’t stop crying I really could not stop crying anding yeah yeah oh it was horrible and I just thought I just need to do something that is just gonna bring me a little Joy right now because I just need to stop crying and so I was like well putting out the Christmas decorations brings me joy so we put up the Christmas decorations and it brought Joy but then I was sad again and we put our Christmas tree up earlier than I think we have ever put it up before but I was like okay this is making me feel a little better then I was like I still don’t feel great and so change your environment outside move your body so I had to get outside I went outside for a walk yeah and and I’ve learned to take contrary action and when I’ve been in pain or whether it’s physical or emotional or or financial whatever kind of pain it is I’ve learned to take contrary action and so instead of isolating myself I think connection is the opposite of addiction for me anyway I’ve learned to take contrary action and I either go see how I can serve or how I can be of service to someone or I just call someone and say hey I’m really sad yeah I need help being vulnerable there’s a lot of power in that and then I actively went out and did some Joy spotting and I was like how can I be a joy sparker in this moment even though I’m grieving I’m gonna go out and I went to HomeGoods and the first thing I saw was a wooden sign that said Joy oh and um I smiled and talked to everybody that I saw because we are not meant to do hard things alone we were wired for connection and I just wanted to feel that connection even though it was strangers in the middle of HomeGoods.

So if you’re going through a hard time if you’re struggling there is a way to spark joy and I know I’m just going over things quickly there’s so much to how you can shift your mindset and be in the present moment and cultivate more resilience in the book um and a step by step companion book that um if you you know get the book you can go to my website and get the companion book downloadable for free um actually I’m so old school like I downloaded it because I have a book club yeah I started a book club and look I downloaded this uh companion Playbook and after after I’d written my book my husband first of all he was like I told him that I got a book deal and he was like oh God what you’re writing another book he like time to do that and then I wrote it then I started writing the companion book and he was like what are you doing now I thought you were done with that and I said well no I’m giving a companion book now too. Now tell me what’s in the companion book again. Well the companion book is um I wanted to do something for the people who pre-ordered my book but you can still get this even though the book’s already out but it’s really um so you can write it’s almost like having your own little companion book to write in as you go through each chapter go a like a little Journal but prompts and such prompts and um support and really you know it’s a weekly self kind of check-in for make reading a chapter and then how are you applying it to your life yeah yeah cuz guys we don’t have to do this alone like there’s so many of us that have gone through difficult times and we’re trying to put it out there just as Amberly is and make it as tangible as possible and and simplify it because it is hard and and learning to do this on your own and and having just the ability to stay with it every day you need support with that you need support with that and uh I think it’s incredible that you have that and tell us your website where they can find it.

Oh you can find everything at AmberlyLago.com um you can find the book you can find the the free downloads that we have there my Mastermind and um our annual event is coming up April 25th and 26th it’s called the Unstoppable success Summit and it’s really for those uh entrepreneurs especially who are ready to level up their business and their life and so I I really bring together phenomenal speakers who have huge hearts that really want to they they care you know and it shows that they care and so it’s a really intimate event on purpose so you know that uh you can make connections and collaborations and you know where is event it’s in Dallas which I’ve learned actually the hard way so this is like my fifth event um and I’ve had it in different destinations and it was a little harder for people to get to like Raleigh North Carolina than it is for people to get to Dallas and yeah yeah got people coming from all over I’ve got even got somebody coming from Costa Rica I hope I can come that’d be amazing I would love for you to come I would love for you to come yeah it’s a really it’s a really special event um because you can tell people really care yeah and I’ve had people say I’ve never been to an event where so many people were so supportive whether they’re walking down the hall or they’re meeting in the bathroom they’re like how can we collaborate how can we work together what we do and so yeah so I’m super excited about it.

I’m so happy for you and you’re doing amazing things and it just shows you that boy life can give you the most difficult difficult challenges but even though you’re still fighting some things every day you are coming from the right place in the right frame of mind and you are helping others all the time and that’s that’s the biggest gift is to give and be of service and just to see how you can trans help someone else to transition and and that’s why I’m so grateful that I had you on the show and helping us just to discover our best selves in our best lives so thank you Amberly. Oh thank you so much thank you always a blessing and all right guys thank you for being a part of wake up with Marcy and it just is time to start whenever you are ready and may you have taken something from today that will help you to just take that first step so all right guys I will see you very soon see you next Thursday bye.