Evoke Greatness Podcast

Redefining Resilience with Amberly Lago (Part 1)

• Episode 129

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🎧 Episode 129: Redefining Resilience with Amberly Lago (Part 1)

Ready to be inspired by an incredible story of resilience and transformation? 

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Amberly Lago, a former fitness trainer and professional dancer who turned a devastating motorcycle accident into a catalyst for personal growth and helping others. Today, she is a Best selling Author x2, TEDx speaker, and highly sought after business coach who is inspiring millions.

Whether you're facing your own challenges, seeking to redefine success, or simply looking to tap into your inner strength, Amberly's journey will challenge you to see adversity in a new light and embrace life with both grit and grace.

Amberly shares invaluable insights on:

  • Surviving a near-fatal accident and the subsequent journey of recovery
  • Battling Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and depression
  • Finding strength through faith and the courage to ask for help
  • Redefining success and purpose after trauma
  • The power of perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds

🔑 Key takeaways:

  1. Hope can be found even in the darkest moments - focus on the possibilities, not the limitations
  2. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness
  3. Our challenges can become powerful catalysts for personal growth and helping others
  4. Small acts of kindness and compassion can spark transformational change
  5. True wholeness comes from radical self-honesty and a willingness to redefine our self-perception

💡 Quotes to remember: 
"Pain has really been my biggest teacher." - Amberly Lago "We heal what we reveal." - Amberly Lago 
"Sometimes all we need is for somebody to look at us a little bit different, to believe in us before we can believe in ourself, to love us until we can love ourselves." - Amberly Lago

📚 Resources Mentioned:

If you're looking to develop resilience, overcome personal challenges, or find purpose through pain, this episode offers valuable insights and strategies from someone who's faced extreme adversity and come out stronger. Remember, as Amberly's story shows, our greatest challenges can become our most powerful catalysts for growth and positive change!

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com

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Sonnie Linebarger:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness. We are officially entering year three of this podcast and I am filled with so much gratitude for each and every one of you who've joined me on this incredible journey of growth and self-discovery. I'm Sunn, your host and fellow traveler on this path of personal evolution. This podcast is a sanctuary for the curious, the ambitious and the introspective. It's for those of you who, like me, are captivated by the champion mindset and driven by an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge. Whether you're just beginning your journey or you're well along your path, you're going to find stories here that resonate with your experiences and aspirations. Over the last two years, we've shared countless stories of triumph and challenge, of resilience and transformation. We've laughed, we've reflected and we've grown together. And as we've evolved, so too has this podcast. Remember, no matter what chapter you're on in your own story, you belong here. This community we've built together is a place of support, inspiration and shared growth. Where intention goes, energy flows, and the energy you bring to this space elevates us all. So, whether you're listening while commuting, working out or enjoying your morning coffee, perhaps from one of those motivational mugs I'm so fond of, know that you're a part of something special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your curiosity, your openness and your commitment to personal growth. As we embark on year three, I invite you to lean in, to listen deeply and to let these stories resonate with your soul. I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness.

Sonnie Linebarger:

Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness. Today, we're joined by a woman whose story redefines resilience and inspires us to find strength in our deepest struggles. Amberl Lago was living her dream as a fitness trainer and former professional dancer when a devastating motorcycle accident changed her life forever. With a 1% chance of saving her leg and enduring 34 surgeries, amberlee faced a choice surrender to despair or fight like hell for a new kind of life. She chose to fight. Through excruciating pain, countless surgeries, a diagnosis of complex regional pain syndrome and the daunting task of completely relearning how to walk, amberlee discovered a new inner strength that she never knew existed. Her journey isn't just about physical recovery. It's a testament to the human spirit's capacity to transform trauma into triumph.

Sonnie Linebarger:

Today, amberlee is a bestselling author, times two, host of a top 1% podcast, the A Lago Show, tedx speaker, widely sought after business coach, who is out there, sharing her message of hope and perseverance with audiences worldwide. Her story reminds us that our greatest challenges can become our most powerful catalysts for growth. In this episode, we'll explore the depths of Amberlee's journey, uncovering insights on resilience, redefining success and finding purpose through pain. Her words will challenge you to look at your own struggles differently and inspire you to embrace life's challenges with both grit and grace. Get ready to be moved, inspired and empowered. Amberlee, so grateful to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Amberly Lago:

Oh, my goodness, thank you so much. That was the best introduction ever. Can I just hang out with you all the time?

Sonnie Linebarger:

Can you go?

Amberly Lago:

everywhere with me.

Sonnie Linebarger:

I'll be your new announcer everywhere you go. We'll just give you beautiful introductions. Well, thank you so much for making the time. I know you are massively busy. You are wildly successful in all that you're doing today and you're really just a personal inspiration for me and, I know, for so many listeners, and so I just thank you for your time today.

Amberly Lago:

Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on your show. Are you kidding? I'm so grateful to be here and honored to get to share with your amazing audience.

Sonnie Linebarger:

Well, I would love I gave a bit of an overview in the introduction, but I would love for you to share a little bit about your story and really what led to this kind of 3.0 version of Amberly today.

Amberly Lago:

Oh well, you are so kind, you know. I have to say, never in a million years would I ever have ever have dreamed that I would be on a computer doing a podcast, because six years ago I didn't even own a computer, I had no social media, but I had this dream of writing a book after I went through the hardest challenge of my life. Really, I thought, man, I'm living the California dream, finally happily married, after being a single mom for a long time. My career was booming. I was sponsored by Nike If you looked in Health Magazine or Shape or Fit Pregnancy. I was regularly contributing articles to those magazines, doing infomercials, and I had two daughters that were healthy. And I thought, man gosh, all that hard work is finally paid off. That hard work has put those blessings in my life and in a blink of an eye it all changed.

Amberly Lago:

I was coming home from work on my Harley, just cruising down Ventura Boulevard, when this SUV shot out of a parking lot and T-boned me. And you know a lot of people go. Well, what does T-boned mean? That means I'm driving along and this SUV just smacked right into me. I'm thrown 30 feet apparently, and I just remember sliding across the asphalt. And when I finally came to a stop I just looked down at my leg and it was crumbled into pieces and there was already blood everywhere. It was like with every pulse it was wild Blood was just pulsing out and I didn't know at the time it's because my femoral artery was severed. Luckily, I had a guy. I swear he was a guardian angel and to this day I don't know who he is. I wish I did. He made a tourniquet around my leg and he saved my life.

Amberly Lago:

Paramedics were down the street. They were at the coffee bean down the street. They heard the accident, looked over and started running towards me before they even got the call. So I feel like everything was just lined up perfectly in order for me to survive in the first place. And what's so crazy is I remember when this happened. One of my first thoughts was other than oh my gosh, this is the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. Was. This can't be good. I might have to train clients on crutches. For a while. I was already thinking of how was I going to keep my business going that I'd worked so hard to build. It's crazy. As an entrepreneur, what kind of goes through your mind? I was rushed to the hospital and it was crazy.

Amberly Lago:

In the emergency room was filled with cops. My husband was a lieutenant commander and he was a first responder. He was used to seeing gory, bloody, horrible accidents. I had never seen him cry and he was hysterical. I didn't know.

Amberly Lago:

I was taped to the gurney and I couldn't see exactly what everything looked like when they cut my leggings off and I just screamed across the ER. I said honey, get over here. I need you to be strong for me, because at that moment I didn't know. I thought, wow, I might be dying and I need to know he's going to hold it together, take care of our children. That's the last thing I remember before they put me in induced coma and I woke up out of a coma and the first thing I learned was they said I am so sorry. This is like a war wound. There's nothing we can do for you. You have a 1% chance of saving your leg. We need to amputate. And I said well, wait a minute. You just said there's a 1% chance. So that means that all I could hear in that moment was there's a chance, there's a chance, there's a chance. And I hung on to that and I held on to that. That was my glimmer of hope. We found a doctor.

Amberly Lago:

It took an act of God to get me transferred to a different hospital and surgery by surgery 34 in total they were able to piece my leg back together and after months in the hospital and thousands of hours of excruciating physical therapy, I was able to go home. I was told it'd take me about two years to be upright and maybe be able to walk, and so about four and a half months after the accident, I was upright on crutches and I thought, oh man, I was so excited I had this doctor's appointment that I was going to and I really thought the worst was over. And I went into the doctor's appointment expecting for him to be so proud of me, only to learn that I had a nerve disease that's incurable. It's called complex regional pain syndrome. It's ranked highest on the pain scale. I've tried every kind of treatment for it and through it all, I mean when I was diagnosed I didn't want to believe it. I went to two other doctors. By the third doctor I broke down and cried and said, wow, he said you need to take radical action, and pain has really been my biggest teacher. I didn't really have tools to deal with pain. I didn't realize.

Amberly Lago:

My whole life I was running from trauma and pain from my childhood, from an awful divorce, from abuse, and I was suddenly stuck in this hospital bed with no tools whatsoever, which I started to spiral into depression and into having suicidal thoughts, thinking my family would be better off without me, my husband deserved more, my kids could find a better mom. And in that moment I had just that little bit of light left in me and I feel like we all have that light within us and mine was just barely a flicker and I prayed and I asked God. I said I need help and in that moment it gave me the courage to finally ask for help. For so long I felt like I had to use all my strength to suck it up and what I've learned is that if we can ask for help and then also if we can use our strength to be of service to others and their success, that's where fulfillment is. And I've learned so many tools over the years.

Amberly Lago:

And when I decided to write my book, people thought I was crazy. They're like you're the fitness girl. You don't even have a college education, you don't even own a computer. So I hand wrote 90% of my book, lo and behold, got a publisher. Then, holy moly, they called and said they wanted to interview me on the Today Show.

Amberly Lago:

And it was like I just kept trying to add value as much as I could on social media and that's how I started to, you know, get to know people and connect with people and get invited to be on amazing podcasts like your podcast, and so that's a little bit of my journey and my intention is just to add as much value today to your listeners as I possibly can. Because you know, look, I'm sure I pray anybody listening never gets hit by an SUV. I don't recommend it. I don't recommend being in a coma, but I think we've all been hit by something, whether it's our health, our relationships, our work, what's going on in the world. And pain is pain, and pain demands to be heard and we heal what we reveal. And so if I can offer any kind of tools to help somebody get through a struggle or a challenge or, you know, even if they've hit rock bottom, there are absolutely ways to overcome adversity and there are absolutely ways to find joy through the journey of life's ups and downs.

Sonnie Linebarger:

You have a way of connecting what you went through to resonate deeply with any trauma that anyone has gone through, and it's not just about what occurred, it's how you show up through the pain, through the trauma and through letting your message kind of radiate out of you and serve people in a positive way, of radiate out of you and serve people in a positive way, case in point of just how you shared that and that everybody does have a trauma. I'm curious how you know we think about wholeness or perceived brokenness, right? I'm curious how has your journey redefined the concept of wholeness for you and what can that teach us about the perceived brokenness that sometimes we feel or that despair that sometimes we're in?

Amberly Lago:

Oh, my goodness, that is such a great question. I love that you asked this, because I did feel I felt broken. In fact, you know I was trying so hard to get back to my career and training At this point. I still employed several trainers that kept running the business for a while and then I just could not wait to get back to my clients. One thing that helped me was, even in the hospital, I was making phone calls. This is kind of crazy. I have to share this.

Amberly Lago:

It's not something that I've shared a lot, but the first thing I did after I learned they were going to amputate my leg, I asked for my phone and I remember being wheeled to a different hospital room and on the phone with clients, I had no idea that I had been in a coma for over a week. To me it was just like I was asleep and woke up and what's wrong? Everything's fine, and I was assuring my clients yep, I might be in ICU now, but let me tell you third quarter, I'm getting out of here and we're going to finish strong. I could tell on the other end of the phone they could tell I was crazy, but saving my business was as important to me as saving an actual limb on my body. It was unbelievable. But as I kind of got clear and could understand what was going on, I remember just looking down at my leg that was held together with these steel rods and feeling so broken. I remember when I finally was able to train clients again, I was still on crutches. I had this thought of well, I'm broken, who's going to want to train with me anymore? And to my surprise, my business boomed right away because people saw me in the gym in my wheelchair with a walker on crutches, barely able to walk, not able to get. My leg was stuck straight and the day that I was able to bend it enough to go around and do the bicycle at the gym like they saw me in there no matter what. And so they were like you know, people would come up to me and say you know what? I didn't feel like doing spin class today, but I thought about you and how you show up. So I was not going to make an excuse and I'm here because of you. People wanted to train with me because they saw it was like no matter what. I because of you. People wanted to train with me because they saw it was like, no matter what, I am going to get stronger, I'm going to be resilient, I am going to get through this.

Amberly Lago:

But I still, deep, deep down inside, I still felt a little broken and there came to a point where I was in so much pain I thought this is not it. Actually, I'd had a surgery and I had one of those orthopedic boots on and my husband was working out at the gym where I trained clients and he comes over to me. He goes what are you doing? And I said what? I'm training a client. He's like you're bleeding out across the gym floor. My stitches busted open and I was actually bleeding across the gym and I thought at that moment, something's got to change. Like this is not serving me, it's not serving my family, it's not serving my client.

Amberly Lago:

Then I felt even more broken and I was in so much pain I went to the doctor and I said you know what? I've got the solution. I thought I've got the solution, just leave it to me. And I went and I said you know what? We just need to cut my leg off. It's given me too much pain. I need to move on with my life. Let's cut it off. And he said, well, we can't do that. I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, you have complex regional pain syndrome. It may make the pain worse. It may spread if we do that.

Amberly Lago:

And then he did something that changed everything for me and it started me really on this transformational journey where I didn't feel broken and I finally could feel whole. He took my leg and he put it in his lap and you know, most of the time at the doctors they would put my leg up on the table. He picked my leg up and he put it on his nice white coat. My first thought was, oh gosh, I can't believe he's putting my disgusting, deformed leg on his nice white coat. And then he did something that changed everything. He held my leg and he looked at it like it was a masterpiece, like it was a work of art, like look at what he has done, look at what he put back together, look at what he's created.

Amberly Lago:

He did this and it was such a complicated surgery he's actually my surgeries are in one of his books and something shifted in me in that moment and I thought, wow, if he can look at my leg that way, maybe I can learn to look at it that way too. Maybe I can look at myself differently. And I thought to myself you know what? Sometimes all we need is for somebody to look at us a little bit different, to believe in us before we can believe in ourself, to love us until we can love ourselves. And I think any transformation really starts with taking a good hard look at yourself, who you are, where you are on your journey and getting radically honest with yourself. And that was something that was hard for me, but something that, when I finally did take a good hard look at who I was, where I was, what was going on, then I could take action steps with grit to start to make my life better.

Sonnie Linebarger:

What a moment of humanity, one filled with compassion and kindness. And what's crazy is that was probably just another day in the office for him, and sometimes people don't understand how their small acts can literally start an entire change or shift our perspective or allow us to start a new chapter.

Amberly Lago:

Exactly, and you know I always say that you never know. Like I always say, get in the room, go to events. You never know. You think you might be there to hear one speaker and you might meet somebody in the bathroom. That changes your life. In fact, I just spoke at an event and here I'm thinking I'm going to this event to speak and I can't wait to connect with the audience. I ended up connecting deeply with another one of the speakers who now we're working together and I never knew him before the event. You know what I mean and so you never know. Like that one conversation, that one smile, that one hug, that can shift your whole perspective, that can shift your whole trajectory in life.

Sonnie Linebarger:

Well, that's a wrap for part one in this three-part series with my amazing guest, amberlee Lago. You are not going to want to miss part two of the show next week, where she shares how her perspective changed around, what real beauty is post-accident and what her journey to self-acceptance looked like. She shares how her battle with shame has helped her help others through that process and what the most surprising way trauma has been a gift in her life. See y'all next week for part two. Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me. I hope you'll stick around If you liked this episode.

Sonnie Linebarger:

It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know. Many need to hear this message. I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly. If you go to my website, evokegreatnesscom, and go to the contact me tab, you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message. I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting, so please keep them coming. I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day. It comes from taking little steps consistently. It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary, so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary.

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