Imagine being in an accident, and you have a 1% chance to save your leg. Most people would give up, but not Amberly Lago. She had true grit and resilience. After her motorcycle accident, she thought her career was over, but she did not give up! Discover how she managed to shift her mindset into one that is full of gratitude. Join your host Dr. Patty Ann Tublin as she talks to Amberly about her incredible story. Amberly is the Founder of Your Unstoppable Life Mastermind. She is also the host of the True Grit and Grace podcast and is the author of the book, True Grit and Grace: Turning Tragedy Into Triumph. Find out what Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is and how she overcame it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, so go out there and start living your dreams!
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The Power Of True Grit: Turning Your Mess Into Your Message With Amberly Lago
In this episode, we have a powerhouse guest but before we go any further, make sure you like, comment, share and most importantly, subscribe to this show. Our guest is a TEDx speaker, a bestselling author, and a woman that has overcome more than you and I could ever imagine in our lifetime to climb to the top of her world. Make sure you put on your seatbelts because Amberly Lago is going to take us for a ride. Welcome, Amberly. Thank you so much for being a guest.
Thank you so much for having me. We were having so much fun talking before we started recording. We were like, “We are doing this episode. We got to start recording this.”
That is what women do. They have a lot to say and they want to impact the world.
You can feel that energy when you meet someone. I appreciate you having me on. I love your show. It is an honor to be here. Thank you.
You are more than welcome. Rather than read off all your bio, which everybody can get online and I encourage people to check you out, why don’t you start with what you’d like us to know? What makes Amberly the powerhouse woman that she is? You can start anywhere you want.
Sometimes when you hear your bio read, it is the highlight reel of these things that I have accomplished, which I am so grateful that I do have a bestselling book, I’ve done a TEDx, I’ve been on the Today show and Forbes, and all these things. It is from when I hit rock bottom when I was living out of a bottle. I went from this elite athlete being sponsored by Nike.
What sport did you do? You were a sponsor for Nike. Were you a runner?
I was a runner and a run leader for Nike. I taught people how to pace themselves to run marathons. Running was my drug of choice. That is what I did when I was anxious, happy or sad. I did not realize that I ran from everything until I was stuck in a hospital bed. I was forced to deal with all these emotions of past trauma, horrible divorce, and sexual abuse as a kid. I ran from all of that.
Hospital bed? What happened?
Beautiful sunny California day. I love the weather. One of my favorite things to do was to ride my motorcycle. I just finished work and I hop on my motorcycle. My husband was a CHP Sergeant and then he became a Lieutenant Commander but before that, what we did in our pastime was we would ride motorcycles together. I grew up on motorcycles and dirt bikes. This was my second Harley. I hopped on my bike. Your life can change in the blink of an eye.
Going through pain starts with believing that you’re going to be able to get through the day and be the victor of your life.
Coming home, I got hit by an SUV. I remember sliding across the asphalt. I was right on Ventura Boulevard thinking, “Please do not let another car hit me.” I could not tell what I was sliding into. I am lying in the street. I looked down at my leg and one of the first things I thought was, “This cannot be good. I might have to train clients on crutches for a while.” I had a successful career as a fitness trainer and had several trainers that worked with me.
Did you teach trainers to be trainers?
Yes. I had a trainer certification preparation course. It was very successful. I got paid to do what I love. My first thought was, “I might have to do this on crutches.” My default was okay, “What am I going to do next? What can I do next?” I had no idea that this was going to change the whole trajectory of my life. My whole life would change. I started to realize how serious it was because of the pain.
This was while you are lying on the floor?
There was blood everywhere. I had a guy that made a tourniquet on my leg right away. He saved my life. I had no idea at the time that my femoral artery was severed. I was bleeding out on the street. I had no idea how severe it was. As people started approaching me, they were not running over to me. One lady fainted. People were pausing and looking at me horrified. Luckily, paramedics were down the street. They were already running to the scene of the accident before they could even get on the fire truck and head over.
They went to the scene. I got transported to the hospital right away. They had to put me in an induced coma because I had lost so much blood that my organs were shutting down. They could not control the pain. The next thing I know, I woke up from a coma and learned, “Sorry, we are going to have to amputate your leg. It is like a war wound. You have only a 1% chance of saving it.”
How old are you at the time?
I was 38 years old. I was at the prime of my career. I had done a fitness video the day before. I had been featured in Shape. I felt like, “All this hard work, I am finally living the life of my dreams. This was like the rug was pulled out from underneath me.” When they told me that I only had a 1% chance of saving my leg and they are going to have to amputate it, that 1% is what I hung on to. I was like, “There is still a chance? We got to find a doctor who is willing to take that chance with me.”
That took 34 surgeries, months in the hospital and thousands of hours of excruciating physical therapy. I was talking to my dad. We were under a tornado warning. We had a hailstorm come in. This is in Dallas and I told him, “Dad, there is something to be said about growing up in Texas. You have to be gritty, tough and resilient. The weather is constantly changing. You never know when you are going to have to take cover.” I lived in LA for 31 years and being in the dance industry was cutthroat. You had to be tough to live in that.
Sometimes when you are going through this tough situation or a challenge, you do not understand why you are going through it but there is always a blessing and a lesson in it. It helps develop your grit and resilience. Being an athlete, a professional dancer and growing up in Texas, all these things did help me develop my resilience, which helped me get through every single surgery one day at a time.
You are lying in bed and it sounded like you had an epiphany or revelation. Something changed.
Going to the hospital, it was hard going through surgery after surgery and the pain. At one point, they thought they were going to have to put me back in an induced coma because they could not control my pain. When your pain gets so high, you can go into shock where you start shaking uncontrollably. All of that was hard but the challenge was when I got home from the hospital. Now I am home, I have no tools and no coping skills. I have got $2.9 million worth of medical expenses. I am out of work. We had a lien on our house.
I was the main breadwinner of the family. I’m out of the hospital. I am deformed and scarred from the right hip down. My leg is made of metal. They are still trying to figure out, “Should we go ahead and amputate it after all of these surgeries? Is she going to have an infection?” I am thinking, “What do I do now?” I cannot run to process all my feelings and emotions. I am stuck in a hospital bed. I could not even use the bathroom on my own. I had to be on my back with my leg elevated. I started setting these little attainable goals and this might sound silly or stupid.
You were married at the time though. Is it the person you are married to now?
Yes. He stuck by my side.
Did you have a child at that point?
I had a daughter that was 15 and a daughter that had just turned 2 years old. Two very critical times, one that was going to be a freshman in high school and one that had started going to daycare. I had never been away from her and now I could not see her for two weeks. It was the longest I had ever been away from her.
Also, you cannot be running after her. A two-year-old does not stop moving.
Sometimes, it’s not about the grit of pushing through pain; it’s about listening to your body.
All I wanted to do was to be able to chase after my kids, be able to go to work again and be that wife that my husband married. We had only been married a couple of years.
Is it not amazing how when tragedy strikes, all of a sudden, our priorities get re-adjusted to what the priorities should be, to begin with?
If you do not have your health, you cannot do the things that you want to do. If you do not have good health, then you cannot enjoy the things that you already have. Everything stood still. I wanted to be able to use the bathroom on my own. We had the hospital bed downstairs. A goal of mine was I needed to be able to stand up for long enough to use the crutches, get down the hall and use the bathroom on my own.
That started with seconds at a time being able to stand up on my own. I remember a friend of mine who I worked with who was another trainer. She came over and goes, “You cannot be a trainer anymore. What are you going to do?” I burst into tears. I was like, “What do you mean I cannot work in?” I had a doctor’s appointment and the doctors told me, “It is going to take you two years to learn to walk again if you ever walk again.”
I thought, “I have got this doctor’s appointment. I am upright on my crutches. It has only been three and a half months and I am already upright. He is going to be so proud of me.” I walked in and he took one look at me, examined me a little bit and ran out of the room. I looked at my husband and said, “That is not the reaction I was looking for. I thought he was going to be proud of me.”
I do not even get it. What was he running out of the room for?
He diagnosed me with complex regional pain syndrome, which is dubbed the suicide disease because it is ranked highest on the pain scale. There is no known cure. He told me, “You got something very serious.” I’m like, “Yeah, that was serious. I got hit by an SUV.” He’s like, “You are going to be permanently disabled. You need to go back and get in your wheelchair.” I am like, “For how long?” He said, “Forever. You are never going to work again. This is incurable. You are going to be in pain for the rest of your life.” I felt like I had been kicked in the gut like, “This is going to be the rest of my life? The pain is not going to get better?”
I felt like I had been handed a death sentence. I cried all the way home and when we got home, my husband stayed home. I got in the car and drove myself with my leg up on the dashboard because I could not have my leg down because of the pain. I learned to drive with my right leg up on the dashboard and drive with my left foot.
I got to my physical therapist and said, “Perry, I have got something very serious. The doctor told me I have got CRPS. I am going to have to work harder than I have ever worked before if I want to have the life that I have always imagined.” He said, “I thought something was going on.” I am like, “Why did you not tell me?” It was one appointment at a time at physical therapy. I am still not cured. I still have pain but I have learned to manage the pain to where I can still have a life of joy and work.
Amberly, I am confused. How could your physical therapist not have known that you had been in pain?
I remember one day, they would work on my leg and put all this lotion and stuff to work through my ankle and legs because it was swelled up like a balloon. They would get the towel and rub off that lotion. It was like they were taking sandpaper and rubbing my leg. They went around the corner and I could tell they were whispering about something. I thought, “What is going on?” They did not want to tell me and jump to any conclusions that I might have CRPS. Being an athlete and a professional dancer, you learn to push through the pain.
One of the first questions the doctor asked me was, “Are you the kind of person that likes to push through the pain?” I am like, “Yes.” Maybe he can tell I have got a degree and suck it up. I have got a PhD and suck it up. I can get through the pain. He said, “You need to stop doing that. You have got something very serious.” Being a dancer, I was taught that it did not matter if your toes were bleeding in your pointe shoes. The show must go on.
You did ballet?
I did pointe and grew up my whole life as a dancer. Being an athlete, I would be running around the track and have to throw up. My coach did not care. She is like, “Get off the track to throw up and then you keep running.” I thought, “I need to push through this and eventually, it is going to get better.” I learned that pain has been my biggest teacher in every aspect and how I listened to my body because I was ignoring it. When I first got diagnosed, I was like, “Screw this. This is not me. I do not have this.” I went to another doctor and they were like, “You have CRPS.” At the time, they called it RSD.
What did the RSD stand for?
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. It is a disease of your sympathetic nervous system. For a lack of a better word, it is like a computer that needs to be rebooted. It is always in a constant loop of pain. I went to the third doctor. They are like, “You have this. You need to take radical action more than just going to physical therapy and get on this right away.” I went to take some aggressive medical treatments that were not covered by insurance, most of them. I went from never doing a drug in my life to now I am getting infused with ketamine, which was $2,000 every time I went in.
Is ketamine an enzyme? What is that?
Ketamine is a horse tranquilizer so it knocks you out. They have ketamine in the ER for a child that they are trying to reset a broken arm. It is a hardcore tranquilizer.
People are so busy taking care of everybody else that they forget about themselves. Put yourself on the to-do list.
What was the point of that?
To try to reboot your nervous system and stop and break that pain cycle so your body does not sense that pain. CRPS is dubbed the suicide disease. I have it in my right leg. It feels like there is a vice grip on my foot with battery acid going through my vein. You cannot get out of that pain. You want to scream mercy. It’s constant pain. They would knock me out with these ketamine infusions. It did not seem to work. I had spinal blocks and spinal radio-frequency where they go in and burn the nerve. A side effect of that is you can become paralyzed. I was willing to be paralyzed to get out of this pain.
After trying every kind of treatment and spinal stimulator. They implant these leads into your back and implant a box in your glute, in your butt cheek. You got a dial and you turn to try to break that pain cycle. Nothing was working. I was on 73 homeopathic pills and 11 different prescription medications at one time. Nothing was working for the pain.
The only thing that started to work for the pain was when I was like, “Forget all of this. I am tired of being poked and prodded. I have to change my mindset and accept where I am.” I have to accept that, “I have CRPS. It is not going away. I cannot stuff it down with a bunch of pills. I can’t pretend it is not there and try to keep moving forward. The only way I am going to get through this is to have some awareness about it and embrace it.”
As soon as I started to accept it, I was then able to start to make better decisions. People ask me all the time, “You have CRPS. I cannot get out of bed. How do you do it?” It starts with a mindset, believing that you are going to be able to get through the day, having a purpose and getting out of the victim mentality. I had to start to believe that I could be the victor of my life. I made a conscious decision. I decided, “I want to be someone who my children look to as, ‘She overcame these things and does her best every day. She is the victor. She is resilient, not the victim and blame and shame.’”
I always tell people, which COVID is a great example, everyone is in the same circumstance. One of the few times in the history of the world, we are all in it together. You can choose to be a victim or a victor. It is all your mindset. My thought is that you are able to tap into that mindset of being an athlete and a dancer, “I am in pain. So what? Keep going.”
That served me well until it did not because I ended up in the hospital 6 times in 1 year. I was good at grit. I can work hard. I was not even the most talented or the best but I could outwork. I was used to pushing through and sucking it up. Growing up in Texas, we had sayings like, “Cowgirl up. Get her done. Hide your crazy and be a lady.” I was not listening to the whispers of my body telling me, “Something is wrong.”
Pain is an indicator. It is telling you, “You need to go a different direction. Pay attention to me. Look at this. We got a situation over here.” I remember the pain was worse that day. I looked at my foot and it looked more red than usual but I had a motivational keynote to deliver so I put on some uncomfortable shoes.
You were back at work?
I started working a year and a half after my accident. I started training clients on crutches in person. I started trying to go back to my old life as a personal trainer. That career boomed because people were like, “I saw you in the gym in your wheelchair and on crutches. I have no excuses. I want to train with you because if anybody can show me how to get through it, I know you can.” That was not serving me well. I was killing myself on my feet and pushing through.
I had gone to give this talk and that night, I put my leg up on the table. I had this red line going up my leg and thought, “This might be an infection but I have been busy pushing through the pain.” I told my husband, “I am going to take myself to the ER. I will be back. Ruby’s homework is done. The kitchen is clean. I am done with work for the day. Let me go. Here I am, last on the list.” I get to the ER and they are like, “You have an infection. We have to admit you. This is bad.” I called my husband and I am like, “They are keeping me in the hospital. I have an infection.”
I still did not pay attention to it. I went so far as to be healed from that, still pushing through and getting gritty. I ended up going septic with another infection. When I went into the hospital, the doctor said, “You do not look like you should be here. You look like an athlete but you are septic. If we do not admit you into the ICU right away, you could die.”
This is another time now?
I was in the hospital 6 different times in 1 year. Maybe it is because I am stubborn and hard-headed, and I wanted to keep moving forward. I did not listen to the signs that my body was telling me. It took a doctor telling me, “If you would have waited one more day, you would have died,” for me to start paying attention. It is not just about grit. It is about listening to our bodies and giving ourselves grace. It is about putting ourselves on our to-do list because I was busy taking care of everybody else.
I had a good friend of mine say, “Your impact is only as strong as you are healthy.” It took that for me to go, “What are my priorities?” For anybody reading this, COVID did that to a lot of people. A lot of people have had health scares, have lost loved ones and maybe lost their jobs but what are your values and priorities? I am big on to-do lists. I have a whole list of things on my desk. If we do not put ourselves on our list and take care of our health, then none of the other stuff matters.
I have an interesting question for you as you are speaking. Modern medicine, in so many ways, is miraculous. In what we do, our life expectancy is so much longer. A lot of our problems are self-induced, overeating or overdrinking. For the most part, it is incredible. Here is the dilemma and I hear that you were faced with it. On the one hand, there are so many aspects to today’s medicine that can keep us alive. I will not say keep us healthy. We are responsible for ourselves, but it helps us when there is a medical condition imposed upon us.
Medicine also puts limitations on us. The doctors told you early on, “You will never walk. You are going to lose your leg. Forget about it.” Usually, when they say a 1% chance, they are like, “You have got a snowball’s chance in hell but never say never.” With the 1%, they were playing with you but you grabbed onto that. They do not say anymore, “It is stage 4 cancer, 3 weeks to live,” because they know that the mindset determines so much of our health.
My whole thing is the mind and body are connected. The base of the brain is connected to the top of the spinal cord. It is a gross oversimplification. It is operating reciprocally. The brain, logic and emotion. You willed yourself to health. If you listen to the doctors, you would not have your leg or you would be dead. Yet the doctor said, “If you went one more day with the sepsis, you would have been dead.” That was probably true. How did you face the medical community telling you one thing and you said, “I do not think so?” You have to listen to them.
You can choose to focus on the negatives or the fact that you are so grateful to be alive.
It is important to be your own advocate. You have to ask questions. Not just the doctor’s questions but ask yourself questions. I am a woman of faith. I believe in a higher power. I asked God, myself and the doctors. My dad is having surgery and I am like, “What kind of surgery is it?” He goes, “I do not know.” I am like, “Dad, you have to ask questions. Is it invasive? Is it a fusion? What are they doing? When will you be able to start physical therapy?” Ask questions, not just from the doctors but from everything. Read the labels on the medicine.
Many people take medication and I will say to them, “What are you taking that for?” “I do not know. The doctor told me.”
I still have a pain management doctor. Everybody is different with CRPS but I take something and fought this for years. I did not want to take medicine or have to take it. I am on the lowest dosage of Lyrica, which is an anti-seizure medication. A lot of people that have diabetes are on Lyrica. It seems to help with the burning for me. I am constantly asking my doctor, “I heard about a vagus nerve stimulator. What is that?” They are like, “That means a brain surgery. I do not think you want to have brain surgery. Do you?” I am like, “I do not but I thought I would ask you.” I ask them, “I heard there is a new FDA drug approved that is a ketamine nasal spray. Do you know about that? I am sober so I do not want to take anything that is going to make me loopy to affect my mind.”
For me, I am so happy to hear you say it starts with your mindset. I was on The Doctors TV. They took a 10-minute clip and edit it down to 2 minutes. They took out the part of all these different things that I have tried with CRPS. When you have a chronic illness and especially an invisible illness, you spend half your time pretending you do not have it or you try to forget you have it. You have the other part of the time trying to explain what it is, prove that you have it and know what it is. I am like, “Forget it. I am not trying to prove anything.”
On The Doctors, they cut out the part where I had the spinal stimulator. They showed, “Woman cures pain with her mindset.” The haters came out of the woodwork. It was the first time I had so many haters in my life but what works for me starts in my mind. Gratitude is alchemy, journaling, meditating, visualization, prayer and all these things that I do daily to get me through the pain and give me the life that I want. We all deserve to have a life of joy and be able to do that.
There is so much about meditation and journaling. I am big into neuroscience. Not that I am an expert but I love neuroscience because as a relationship expert, someone that believes in how we are with people and energy, you can show the brain of a depressed person and how it looks different from the brain of someone that is not. Before we go there, Amberly, since you are someone that is open and explores, as we are doing this interview, Tony Robbins came out with his book. He talks about stem cell treatment. Did you try that? What do you know about that? Some people swear by it and other people are like, “Fairy dust again.” What is your take on that?
Stem cell has worked very well for some people. I thought about stem cell. I have not tried stem cell. You have to be very careful where you get it. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there. Not Tony Robbins. I love Tony Robbins but there are a lot of people out there that say, “Try this. This will cure your pain.” When you are in a place of desperation, you would do anything.
I thought about trying it but after researching it and seeing how it could benefit the CRPS, there are not any studies that I have been able to find that have shown that it cures or relieves CRPS. The only thing that has worked for me truly is shifting my mindset, the minute I am thinking, “My life sucks. I wish I could walk. I cannot run anymore.” I immediately go to a place of lack of the things that I cannot do and the life that I am yearning for that I used to have. Instead, I shift that with gratitude for what I do have because it does shift your perspective. It gets you focused on all the things that you can do and do have.
When I say gratitude is powerful, it is life-changing. I experienced that the moment that I was in a place of despair in the hospital bed with metal rods holding my leg together. I remember I was watching some infomercial and this beautiful girl running on the beach. I started crying thinking, “I will never wear a bikini again. What if I cannot chase after my kids? What if my husband does not look at me the way that guy is looking at her in the infomercial? What if he does not love me? What if he leaves me? What if I die tomorrow?”
All these thoughts went spiraling down. I thought, “I have got a choice here. I can focus on maybe they are going to amputate my leg tomorrow or on the fact that I am so grateful to be alive. I have breath. I am sitting up in my bed. I have nurses that are taking care of me. I have a husband that is still here with me.” All the things that I am grateful for shifted the way that I felt at that moment. It is something that I did every single day.
Back then when I was writing in my journal every day and mostly to remember what was going on because I was very drugged up, I never imagined that those moments that I would write down would someday be those journal entries in a book that I would write in the future. The moments of gratitude, prayer and journaling shifted my perspective. It is something that I still do every single day. People think, “You are so positive.” I am not. I have to work on being positive. It is something I work at.
It’s interesting you say that because especially for the audience, whatever your challenge is, gratitude works. The research shows that everyone is searching for happiness. You do not search for happiness. You are happy. The number one way to be happy is gratitude. There will always be people that have more but there are plenty of people that have less. I have a couple of questions I want to ask you but first, tell us where you are now. What is your health like? Are you walking? How is your leg? How is your pain?
I still have pain but it is manageable. Most of the time, I forget about pain when I get to sit and talk with you or somebody that I am so interested in and the conversation is so rich. Distraction helps with it but I have changed everything from my thinking to my daily ritual practice. I get up 1 hour or sometimes 2 hours before I wake the rest of the family up so I can have time devoted to my mindset and spiritual care. I have changed everything. I eat everything I consume.
I used to believe as a fitness instructor that we get everything from our food. We do not get everything from our food. We need supplements. I turned 50 so I need extra supplements. I need to do things to heal my gut. I was on so many different medications at one point in my life and had so many surgeries that we all need to work on healing our guts.
I am eating an anti-inflammatory diet. I had one doctor say, “It is good that you keep yourself in shape because I am not sure that your leg would be able to hold you up if you were overweight.” It was harsh to hear that but at the same time, movement is my medicine. I used to go to the gym because when I was younger, I was like, “I want to look good.” Now it’s, “I want to feel good.”
I have my leg. It is scarred up. Sometimes I get some crazy looks when people see it. It took me a long time to embrace the way that it looks and those scars. I had a lot of shame. I hated the way that I looked. It was the doctor who saved my leg that changed my life. He helped me embrace and shift my mindset around that. I had gone to him. It was about a year after my accident and I said, “Doctor, I appreciate all the surgeries you have done and all that you have done to save it but we need to go ahead and amputate it. It is giving me too much pain. I need to cut it off so I can move on.”
He said, “We cannot do that. You have got CRPS. It could get worse if we amputate it.” He put my leg in his lap and looked at it like it was his masterpiece like this was the leg that he had saved. Something shifted in me and I started thinking, “If he can look at my leg like that, then maybe I can start to look at it that way too.”
Amberly, as you described that, I could picture that. The sense I had and I hope this is not offensive to you but he was like you said, “This is my masterpiece.” He gave the message, “Are you not deserving of this?” For some reason, I felt that. “I gave you my masterpiece. You do not want it?” He would have felt rejected.
Go out and turn your mess into your message.
Usually, they will put your leg on the table. He sat in front of me and put it on his lap. My first thought was, “He is putting my ugly, disgusting leg on his nice white coat.” He not only accepted it but he was like, “What a masterpiece.” It is in his book. It was one of his most challenging cases.
You got to give the doctor a shout-out. What is his name?
Dr. Don Wiss. He retired and I told him, “If you ever retired, I am going to hunt you down and find you while you are fishing on that lake and come get you when I need surgery.”
I am curious. Did you ever meet the man that saved you that put the tourniquet on your leg when you were bleeding?
I have never met him. I wish I could thank him because he saved my life. I have made several thank yous. I remember when I was being put in an induced coma, the ER was crazy and chaotic. My husband was crying. I had never seen him cry. He is a big tough guy. I remember this beautiful nurse. Her name is Sheniqua. She leaned over me and said, “I am going to give you something to make you feel all better.” I remember at that moment thinking, “When I am well enough, I am coming back to this hospital to thank her for giving me that moment of serenity and peace before I was put in an induced coma,” and I did.
As soon as I was able to be put in a wheelchair, I had my husband take me to North Ridge Hospital. I went and found her and thanked her. About two years later, I reached out to her and we went for a hike. She is not a hiker. She does not like the hike but she said, “If you can hike, I told myself that I could do it too.” I have kept in touch with a lot of the doctors and the nurses.
They so appreciate that because people mean well. They do appreciate the help but then they leave and live their life, which is what the healthcare workers want. When you do come back, there are so many people that you have blessed with your story besides the healthcare workers. Tell us about the work that you do now because you are inspiring people with the life that you live. Share your gift with the audience.
I do group coaching, which is crazy. A mastermind is what I am into right now which is my pride and joy. I love doing it because it is women that I teach how to share their message and build their influence and impact. A few years ago, I did not even own a computer. When I decided to write a book, I hand wrote about 80%, 90% of it then bought a computer and found a publisher. They were like, “We do not do any marketing. If you want to do that, you are going to have to figure it out yourself if you want to get your book out there.” I am like, “Let me start on Instagram and social media.” I built that platform and then ended up on the Today show and become a bestseller.
I am helping people to move through pain, but we all have pain. What I am most passionate about is taking these women and sharing everything that I have learned along my journey on how to turn your mess into your message and get your story out there to help and inspire others. We need more women sharing their stories, starting podcasts, getting on stages, and speaking on panels. Any way that I can share with them how to get their message out there and empower them is what I love doing the most.
Before I have you tell people how they can find out more about you because they will, I have two questions. What is the single most important thing you have learned about life that you want everybody to know?
Ask for help and you do not have to do it alone. I had this thought that I am not asking for help. I do not want to show my vulnerability and appear less. If I ask for help, I am going to look stupid. If I can leave you with one thing, it is to ask for help. At every level of your life, relationship or business, we all need help. When we support each other, we are powerful and unstoppable. We are strong on our own but when you come together with another powerful woman and you share your experience, strength and hope, you are unstoppable.
If are reading this and you are like, “I am struggling with pain or I’m struggling in my business or my relationship,” ask for help. Go to someone who has already gone through that struggle that has come out on the other side and ask them how they did it. That has changed my life. That is why I am a coach and I have a coach. I am a mentor and I have a mentor. It is the power of community.
My last question for you is, what is the last book that you re-read and why?
A book that I have read quite a bit is Soundtracks by Jon Acuff. He talks about the power of what we tell ourselves, the belief and how we can switch that. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is a book that everyone should read. It is simple. It helps me with daily choices. I have read that book several times. You Are Radically Loved by my friend, Rosie Acosta. The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon is great. I have read this book several times, True Grit and Grace.
Who is the author of that book?
That Amberly Lago girl.
I hear she is something else. Amberly, how can people learn more about you, find out about you, want to work with you and find out about your book? Where do they go?
AmberlyLago.com. I want to give your audience something special that they can take with them, that they are not just going to be inspired by hearing a story. Hopefully, everybody reading this is inspired. If you text the word GRIT to (818) 214-7378. I am hanging out on Instagram, @AmberlyLagoMotivation is where you see most of my shenanigans and my story.
No person, certainly no woman ever changed the world by being a good girl.
I like it. We are going to have a lot of fun together.
Thank you so much. Amberly did not disappoint. She took you for a great ride. This concludes this episode. Make sure you like, comment, share and subscribe. Until next time.
Important Links
- Amberly Lago
- Soundtracks
- The Four Agreements
- You Are Radically Loved
- The Energy Bus
- True Grit and Grace
- @AmberlyLagoMotivation – Instagram
- https://Twitter.com/AmberlyLago
- https://www.Facebook.com/AmberlyLagoSpeaker/
- [email protected]
- https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=V3gEfdAcO_8
- https://Vimeo.com/532055748
- https://www.Instagram.com/amberlylagomotivation/
About Amberly Lago
At age 38, Amberly’s life was turned upside down when she was hit by an SUV while riding her motorcycle. Recovering from 34 surgeries to save her leg from amputation, she was diagnosed with an incurable chronic pain disease. As a result, she lost her fitness business and had zero self-confidence. Hopeless after trying any and everything for her chronic pain, she spiraled into a depression.
She wanted to give up. Then one night while she was lying in her hospital bed, her life flashed before her eyes… She remembered something her grandfather had said, “You have a shovel in your hand. You can either lean on it and pray for a hole or start digging.” She realized right there that she had a choice. Give up and give into the pain or start digging and fight to create something positive out of her circumstances.
Today, Amberly is a true inspiration of motivation and resilience. Through her book, coaching, and workshops, she has curated unique tools to teach others how to tap into their superpower of resilience and persevere through any of life’s challenges. She offers hope and solutions for anyone (like her) to live life to the fullest.
Amberly has most recently been featured on NBC’s The Today Show, The Doctors, Hallmark, and has contributed to magazines such as Shape, Fit Pregnancy, Health, Keynote Speaker Magazine and Disability Magazine.
For free downloadable playbook, text: grit
to 818-214-7378
