what would you do if you to wake up in the hospital after a common epidural procedure to find out that you are paralyzed from the waist down how would you react especially at the young age of 19 would you be able to find purpose in life let alone a deeper more meaningful cause you know I've been on a quest to find people who Define what resilience really means and two years ago I had the opportunity to hear an incredible story from mallerie Wegman a young woman who overcame being paralyzed during college only to find purpose and Par Olympic swimming and giving back to others by sharing her story and truly demonstrating what it means to be [Music] resilient if by sharing my story if I can help one other person navigate through life if I can use my experience and and the muck that my family and I had to find our way through and use that to help somebody else than to that kind of answered my why and it made it worth it I I started realizing that I believe everything happens for a reason and this is where my life is maybe meant to be and that was enough for me welcome to resilient where we hear stories from leaders on risk disruption and crisis and what it means to truly be resilient and we get those stories by meeting our guests on their home turf my name is Mike Kerney the leader of deloit strategic risk practice and today I am sitting in Colorado Springs and I I woke up this morning if you could almost picture it I woke up I opened up my drapes and I had the most beautiful view of this mountain only to find out at its pik's peak and it was glamorous and you know I started to think about my conversation with mallerie and and as I indicated just a few seconds ago you know I had a chance to see her speak a couple years ago and she is what embodies being resilient so I cannot wait to hear what she has to say so without further Ado let's jump into my conversation with mallerie Wegman from the Broadmore Hotel in Colorado Springs I think your story is a case study in resilience everybody's got a different way of talking about resilience or defining what does resilience mean to you you know I think for me resiliency is really about kind of that will to never give up right and never give in and that doesn't mean that that you don't have your moments of kind of weak as I say and by having moments of weakness it doesn't make us weak it just makes us human that's part of the deal um but for me resiliency is really handling those those life adversities with that Grace and that that ability to face the challenge at hand headon and not and not steer away from it and understand that life is going to happen and there's going to be hardships but you have to find a way to keep trekking through and and not give up or give in the circumstances around you so let's go back to your where you started um let's hear your story before we'll talk about the event but let's where did you grow up what did you like what were you passionate about when you're a kid tell us about who mallerie is oh goodness I grew up in Minnesota um I was actually born in Kansas so I can't say born and raised in Minnesota but we moved there when I was an infant so I was raised in Minnesota uh grew up there my entire life I'm the baby of three girls um very very close with my family and I've been a lifelong swimmer competitively I started competing when I was oh gosh seven years old um my two older sisters swam competitively and so I just kind of got naturally thrown into the sport because I was always at the pool with them and uh that was kind of my that was my big passion outside of outside of school and friends you passion about school I may need to have you talk to my kids no I I wouldn't say I disliked school but I wouldn't say that that was like my number one thing as a kid I loved being social butterfly and I was a swimmer and you know I took School seriously but it wasn't the end all be all for me which is maybe bad to admit but I don't know I don't think that stuff defines you and kind of makes it out to where you're going to end up in life I could not agree more so about who how about role models did you have any role models growing up I did I I know this sounds kind of corny probably but I think my biggest role models were my parents we had a lot of Life happen when I was a kid and Mom and Dad stuck through it all and they are the ones that really taught me the values I needed to get through life and they truly led by example and um they really created an environment for my sisters and I to to thrive in and you know our lives brought a lot of hardship early on for our family I mean my parents in general didn't start off in the kind of what you would call maybe the traditional way they got married very young my dad graduated college with two kids and you know just kind of found a way early early on to make sure he was supporting the family and my mom was working as a nurse and they just kind of kept their Journey going and they they provided a really really nice life for my sisters and I and we were very fortunate in that but they had their fair share of hardships and watching them go through that and how they handled it I think was really um motivating for me as a as a kid and young adult and being able to look up to that and have those constant Ro role models in my life so one of the things I remember um you talked about when I heard you speak but then I think you talk about it all the time so I'm going to use this quote cuz I think it's fantastic it's about your dad um you said that every night when he tucked you in he would say you're the best you can make a difference and you can change the world and and I guess what I'm curious of is what did you think about that at the time and has it changed over time it definitely has you know um one of the things in our family growing up as a kid that was always there were two things that always happened in our house we ate dinner as a family every night no if stands or butts didn't matter what sport schedules were we always found a way to sit down at the table as a family um and then my parents always tucked us into bed and so when Mom and Dad tucked Us in we did our you know bedtime prayers we did the whole bit and then Dad would finish off with the quote and his words were you're the best you can make a difference and you can change the world and as a kid I didn't really know what that meant right I mean make a difference change the world that's it's pretty grandiose I understands how 7-year-old mallerie was going to make a difference and change the world it just was kind of more than I could comprehend and I'm sure as I got older in my teenage years we had the kind of yeah yeah Dad I get it I've heard it my whole life just let me go to sleep deal you know that's kind of how life goes at times um and I never really understood what those words meant um and after my injury in 2008 I started finding a way to grasp it a little bit better I think I just had a little more time on my hands to think about life sure um life was put into perspective very quickly when my injury happened and we um for me it was the realization of by making it to make a difference and change the world we simply just have to be our best and give our best and some days we have more to give than others and that's okay um you know some days it could be just the simple Act of getting out of bed that's all we have that day because life is just really hard and that's fine um but every day we have to find that courage to at least give what we have and by doing so we will inherently make a difference and change the world and I think the other thing I learned from that quote was the power of community and having two people in my life that loved me and believed in me so much that every day no matter what happened in life no matter how good or bad the day may have been they ended the day believing in me enough to tell me that I was the best to tell me that I could make a difference and I could change the world and the power of having people in your life that really to their core believe in you that much it really changes how you're able to feel about yourself and how you kind of conquer the world around you so let's go back to 2008 why were you in the hospital in the first place so I I know you had an epidural but if you could just take us back to that time like why' you even go into the hospital in the first place if you could share that with us so January 21st 2008 was Martin Luther King Jr day I had the day off from class I had just graduated high school in June of 2007 and I was receiving these outpatient they were outpatient injections so it was a clinic across the street from the hospital and um I was going in for what was to be my third and final injection for back pain uh I got a condition called post- Tropa neuralgia which probably means nothing to most people um the long and short is it was just a a residual condition from shingles and I somehow got shingles the fall of my senior year of high school um but as a result I had just horrific back pain and so I was going in on January 21st for my third and final injection uh my dad took me in that day my mom was working actually across the street where she's a nurse and um it it didn't go how it was supposed to I was supposed to you know walk in that morning perfectly fine and I would walk home that afternoon perfectly fine and I walked in that morning and I I never never walked out um I was admitted to the hospital that afternoon and I returned home 6 weeks later completely wheelchair bound and uh the rest was history it was a it was a very tough moment in time um my dad and I have become very close as a result he was in the room when it happened um did he know something was going wrong when it when it happened or it wasn't a right away thing for us it's not until you look back kind of hindsight 2020 where you where we can put two and two together and know the moment it happened um but he was at the head of the procedure table and I was laying on my stomach and I I remember they had me bending my legs at my knees to kind of gauge weakness in them cuz with an epidermal injection even for pain you still get the weakness lot of feeling and all that but then it comes back a few hours later um and I remember my legs dropping very suddenly and you know and that moment it was just oh the epidural is working move me into the recovery room wait a few hours they'll wear off we'll go home and my mom had been with me for the other two and so my dad had never seen the injection he didn't know right and um and we waited and we waited and couple hours went by and nothing had come back and then he got on the phone with Mom who's obviously a nurse she was a labor and delivery nurse for majority of her career she she been through a lot of girls Y and um things weren't adding up they admitted me to the hospital across the street and I think we all kind of hoped I'd wake up the next morning fine and it just was taking longer to wear off and I woke up the next morning and still in the same state I went to bed and um that was kind of the start of that that journey and how to figure out life in a wheelchair and life as a spinal cord injury what was the first so when when you when you woke up the next morning and you figured out wow something something's different it's not going to change what was the first thing that went through your mind do you remember or maybe tomorrow it'll come back maybe like I think for about two weeks it was the I was just going to wait every day and when I even got so I was on a medical floor for a few weeks and then I went to the Inpatient Rehab floor and even when I went into impatient rehab I I had a really hard time coming in terms of the fact that I would go home in a wheelchair right and I was convinced that I would still walk out somehow you know it was this kind of for a long time it felt like this wait and see game it wasn't this abrupt accident where I mean it was but our response that we were getting was kind of yeah it was that hope and that that belief that you know maybe it'll come back maybe maybe something will change maybe it'll finally wear off you know the longest injection of your life right five weeks later it'll wear off um but that never happened and then we kind of started moving that hope to the hope for how do we build my life back and how do we uh um not lose hope in me walking again but kind of transition that and put that energy towards just creating a life for me whether I'm in a wheelchair or not so I read um and I forget exactly where I read this but I I read that you spent a lot of time reflecting on why how did you ultimately or and maybe this is your life like how did you ultimately answer that question the why oh gosh that's always a hard question right I think when life happens I feel like we all kind of find ourselves asking the why the what if and you know the why me was kind of a a question that I I skirted around for a few months quite some time actually after my injury and it would come in ABS and flows I think initially it was a constant question and then it would kind of go away and a few months later it would creep back up and and I had a hard time figuring out the answer to that for quite some time and it wasn't really until I started to get my life back on track that I realized you know I started swimming again and I got back into the classroom and and in 2011 I started speaking and I started realizing that you know if by sharing my story if I can help one other person navigate through life if I can use my experience and and the muck that my family and I had to find our way through and use that to help somebody else then to me that kind of answered my why and it made it worth it I I started realizing that I believe everything happens for a reason and although it was really hard in the days weeks and months to follow it has built me into the person I am today and um I also realized you can't look back wondering what if you you may not always get a a very solid answer to your question of why and sometimes you have to find it for yourself and create that answer um and moving on for me was the most important part and as I moved on I felt like I had more closure and understanding of the why and sometimes for me it was as simple as everything happens for a reason and this is where my life is maybe meant to be and that was enough for me so let's move to the swimming the positive piece and so was it three or four months after that you decided to get in the pool two and a half months and months yeah wow really quick why I know I just asked you the why question but what compelled you so you're an avid swimmer when you're younger now you're going to get back in the pool Y what compelled you to do that you know it's funny I didn't know about the paralympic movement at all growing up I didn't know the Paralympics existed I knew nothing about adoptive sport I I really didn't know anybody with a physical disability and so when I was paralyzed my family and I assumed that I would never swim again we didn't think that swimming was something I would do and then we uh we heard about the par Olympics through newspaper article the first weekend in 2008 of April so it was like I don't know is that Saturday whatever that date was like the fifth or 6th of April and my sister was reading our local paper in Minneapolis the star trib and they had an article about the paralympic swimming trials for the 2008 Beijing games and they were being held at the University of Minnesota and so you know we started researching what are the Paralympics and learning about them and obviously we had all grown up swimming so my sister was like let's go to the pool tonight let's check it out see what it's all about so we went and I I met um a gentleman who ended up being my coach going into 2012 um and then we met him that night at the pool and I kind of got exposed to some of the individuals that had just been named to the US team going for Beijing and and really kind of was able to understand and see firsthand what Paro Olympic swimming really was about and so long and short was that was sad Saturday night and Monday afternoon dad took me back to the pool wow and I got back in for the first time and and it wasn't an easy journey into the water um I didn't bring my suit on the first day of practice so I showed up Monday no suit in hand um one of my high school teammates was now Minnesota Gopher and she had a suit on her of course they have extra suits and the Gophers had just finished practice and the club was getting ready to get in and so uh she brought a suit out and gave it to me and told me to they told me to change and I went out but interestingly enough when I was first paralyzed in rehab at the hospital they brought me into the pool for pool therapy and I hated it I I cried every time I got in the water it was this realization of the one place that I grew up knowing my entire life and feeling like home became my biggest fear cuz I couldn't feel or control my own body in a place that for so long was as second nature as walking used to be and so I actually sometime probably seven eight weeks after my injury said I'd never get in the water again and then April 8th rolls around and I'm at a pool trying to put a suit on and must up the courage to get in not just a 4 foot 95 degree therapy pool but an eight Lane 50 meter competition pool that's what I was going to ask you is the context of the pool different though when it's around Physical Therapy versus a place that you had been before yeah and I think that's what the uh I think that's what it came down to was this wasn't me trying to figure out how to get better um this was me just trying to find a way to move forward right and so I got in the water that day and within like four or five Strokes I remember feeling at home with the with the water and that black line became the one constant in my life that despite everything that was going on hadn't seemed to change and um there we were and I went back to that pool every day can I ask you so so paralympic swimming I get it but I think there's different are there different levels or how how for somebody that's never been exposed to it how should we think about it so when you when you think paralympic swimming right um if you are a paralympic swimmer I would say that means you are either a paralympic hopeful or a paralympian okay not every person with a disability who swims is a paralympic swimmer just like not every person without a disability who swims is an Olympic swimmer right so that's kind of the context that I talk about it there's um disabled sport adaptive Sports however you want to kind of refer to that as so when I first started I was just a swimmer swimming it wasn't until 2009 about a year later I made the US national team and in August of 2009 I started breaking my first world records and at that time I then became a paralympic hopeful for the 2012 games and obviously after the London 2012 games I became a par Olympian um so that's kind of it's very similar to non-adaptive sport how it's kind of set up you know you are a swimmer or a track and field athlete and you don't really get that kind of Olympic title in front of you until you're either an Olympic hopeful or you are an Olympian same goes I would say for paralympic sport so one of the things I've read too I'm going to drop so many quotes that you should know very well but you said that swimming um is your safe haven um and and the question I have is is it because it's physical activity or something greater than that do you think I think it's a little bit of both okay I think for me initially it became my safe haven in the fact that emotionally and ment mentally I needed a place where I felt like I could physically Excel I was so dependent on everybody around me to get through everyday life simple tasks that 3 months prior I didn't think twice about became you know massive um undertakings getting on clothes dressing myself transferring myself I couldn't drive I mean I couldn't do any of the stuff I used to do I lost all independence and in the water that didn't seem to matter I could move forward on my own and that was a really powerful thing and I think for me initially when I got in the water too I was still trying to understand what living life with a physical disability in our society meant and I felt like at that point in my life I had a lot of people telling me because I was now physically disabled I was incapable of X Y and Z and I didn't like that I couldn't understand how one moment now made me so different and so for me swimming was a way to prove that I was physically capable and it kind of broke the mold of that stereotype of what a physical disability stereotypically means and um and so that was really powerful now fast forward eight years I've been swimming and it's still is my safe haven and it was before my paralysis too and I think some of that too is just mentally and emotionally there is something spiritual to me about life over that black line and the Comfort I feel on a good day on a bad day when I'm going through life trying to find answers to things or when I simply don't want to think about anything at all and that black line gives me the power to and the black line you're referring to for the non-swimmers is the line that goes from one end of the yeah yeah that's cool that little black line so tell us about um there's so much we could get into so I'd love to hear kind of the highs and lows of your swimming uh career okay um oh gosh I know that's like literally we could have an entire like separate podcast on on all the good stuff and I really want to hit Rio cuz there's some really compelling stuff that you've talked about but maybe set it up you said that you became um what was the word you use um a paralympic or par Olympian inic in 2009 right yeah okay so so I got back in the water in 2008 April 2008 and by I think it was actually on my birthday in so end of March 2009 I competed in a meet and was named to our nation team and so life kind of fast forwarded from there uh August 2009 I was that your goal like were you like for that year running up to that or were you kind of just going I thought it'd be really cool to make it to the trials for London 2012 and I remember saying that to my sister that night that we went to the pool just to check it out I was like this would be neat to get back in the water and see if I could make it here in four years right uh and then I got back in the water and realized I was actually not bad at this and my body had that muscle memory and knew how to swim like it did my entire life and um I was doing pretty well so it kind of was yes but not initial I never thought it happen that fast um so I made the national team by August of 2009 so we're going on the highs because the road to London was a lot of highs y um I broke my first three world records and I was named to my first International competition and that would be short course worlds in November of 2009 in Rio de Janeiro and I brought home five gold medals and then I hit the ground running for training right when I got back for worlds in 2010 which were long course worlds so that's the length that you race at the games um and those were in einthoven and I swam all nine events you can swim in par Olympic swimming and so it's seven individuals and two relays and I won eight Golds and one silver I came home from that meet and of course the competitor and me um focus solely on the silver because I saw that as my failure of the meat as horrible as that may sound um and so that silver burned a hole my in my swim bag when I got on that plane coming back to the States from the Netherlands and that's all I thought about for a year and I trained for the 100 backstroke and by 2011 uh International competition rolled around and I won nine Golds and nine events and broke the world record in the 100 back stroke and was number one in the world in every event going into the London 2012 games so my career was on fire from the moment I got in the water all the way up until 3 days before for the London 2012 games so what happened I I think I know what tell us what happened then 3 days before the game started I got pulled in for a classification appointment so in paralympic swimming specifically we have 10 physical classes and then three visual classes um so 1 through 10 one is the most severe of the impairments 10 is the least severe of the impairments and I was a seven my entire career at that point um I I typically you you do a bench test where they um check out your your muscle strength on a bench and then they bring you into the water and kind of watch how your body reacts in water so there somebody responsible for the classification you don't just come up with it right no no somebody determines this and um I'd always been with my physical capabilities a six on the bench but by the time I got in the water since I had such good body awareness from a competitive standpoint I always ended up as a seven in the water so I was a seven my whole career but there was really no way I could go down and there was certainly no way I could go up to an eight like an eight was not even kind of yeah nobody was bound to wheelchairs in their everyday life as an eight most people walked everybody kicked everybody could do flip turn so we were like there's absolutely no way as a complete spinal cord injury I could become an eight until I did and 3 days before the games when they pulled me in for my appointment they moved me up to the E Class why so so just for somebody who's not involved in this world at all why three days before so that was just when my appointment was we were in Germany for team camp and they had some riew appointments going on a few days before the game started and they actually did it there in London um at the pool and it was my first my first day actually um Wheeling into the London Aquatic Center you know that pool I'd probably dreamed of at that point for four years and and um that's when the reclassification happened and we went in thinking it was just semantics cross a few tees do a few eyes nothing would change um and then we fought for those 72 hours an appeal prom process and I found out a few hours before Opening Ceremonies um that we lost the appeal and I would not be racing in that 100 meter backstroke the next morning my events changed the days I was to race changed I never raced the girls that I was now racing um so even timing which is important right like when you're and how you prepare for getting your body to Peak at the right time so all of that changed and and it was difficult but I think ultimately I realized by being there I would still return home a par Olympian and the competitor and me ultimately after opening ceremonies I I went back and I I analyzed the world rankings and figured out how fast are the girls that I now have to race what do they go and I kind of deemed September 2nd 2012 as my day that was what I decided and it was day three of competition and it was the 50 meter freestyle so one lap Splash and Dash I was like I think I can handle that and uh I remember going in that morning for prelims convinced in my head that I would be the number one seed going into finals to kind of prove that that I was on the map again because I went into the games Prospect for nine of nine gold medals and after my reclassification I had nothing more than a question mark next to my name and I wanted to prove that I was still forced to be reckoned with in the water and I went into finals and I was seated Fifth and I was in lane two and nobody considered me metal contention I still thought I was and I remember right before I went into that ready room where they stayed just for 30 minutes my teammate pulled my headphone off my ear and he said go shock the world and that was all I thought about in that ready room and I listened to my one song I always listen to before I race on repeat it's a rap song called All I Do Is Win I was going to say you have to tell us what I pump my ego up as high as it can go because I truly believe if you go into that ready room with any doubt you might as well not show up in the first place and um I went out to the blocks and I got on the block of Lane 2 and stared down that black line on the bottom of the pool and amongst 20,000 Spectators my world went silent and I knew I was ready and I remember diving in and at the 25 meter Mark I took my one and only breath and I saw the feet of the girl in Lane three I was in about fifth or sixth place at that point and I buried my head and I just thought of everything my coach and I trained for and when I hit the wall I saw one light go off of my block and that signified that I just won Gold wow and and I remember looking back at the race and it was until about 5 M from the wall that I even put myself in metal contention and it wasn't about till the last 2 meters that I started to pull ahead and win the race I mean it came down to the final last couple strokes and it was kind of that realization of the fact that it's never too late to go after what you want and you can't give up I mean I could have easily mentally just said at the 25 meter Mark when I saw her feet I'm done that's too big of a gap to make up in a 50 there's no way I'm done and I could have started checking out and sometimes you have to dig deep and you have to fight for it and that race for me is kind of what that signified amongst all the craziness just fighting so did that one medal matter more or make a bigger impact on you than maybe the nine 100% yeah I I think that that 50 m gold medal um it carries a lot of weight and I think for me the biggest realization too is the community behind it and the people that got me there because there were multiple stages throughout the journey in where I wanted to give up where it was just too hard I mean I had a successful career all the way to the London 22 games but that doesn't mean it was all roses I mean it's tough work doing that and and you have your days where you question why are you doing this still why are you literally beating your body down every day you go to that pool and what's it for what's the purpose and I was very fortunate going to the games I had people in my life that truly believed in me and on the days where I didn't have it left anymore they they gave me that strength to fight for it and um I think for me that's what that gold medal is about because I've realized I could be the best athlete in the world but without the people in my life I would have never made it to that point right and so did you ever find out why they moved your classification you know I didn't and it's classification is very very very difficult in the sport and it's it's not a perfect process I'll be honest as an athlete um and there's there's a lot of room for improvement um it's also a hard process to perfect right there's a lot of moving Parts um but I think for me ultimately my closure for that is the fact that I love to swim I love to race I love the adrenaline rush I love the training I love pushing my body and I love the sport and for me I have lot of love and respect for the paralympic movement as a whole because ultimately it brought me back to life after my injury and being exposed to disability Sport and the par Olympics as a whole had a lot to do with my healing process after my injury so as hard as the classification was and as hard as it still is some days um I know that there's so much more about the sport and movement than just classification and for me that's why I still do it and I I've realized with time and age that there's politics and there's things that we don't understand in everything in life right things out of your control you just got to let go and control what you can and and uh realize why you're doing it in the first place and that just has to be enough and if it's not then maybe it's your time to be done see I what so my biggest takeaway from your London Games is that you potentially are going to sweep and that in the end you walk away with one gold medal but it means more to you because you had to over over come an obstacle that you didn't see going in and there's a lot there that's well and it's interesting as an athlete it taught me a lot about mental fortitude when you get to a games all of my competitors at that point had put the four years in right we had all trained day in and day out we had all killed our bodies we had all done everything we need to do we were all more than physically capable of coming away with that gold medal but for me it really taught me about the mental component of sport you know we so often think about the physical nature of Athletics what it physically takes but we forget that when you actually get to competition it's like 80% mental and 20% physical at that point it's about who wants it the most who's willing to hurt the most who's willing to dig the deepest in that moment in time for that race and everything changed every single thing that my coach and I planned for for the year leading into the games completely went up in the air when that happened and on paper there was no reason that I should have left with that gold medal but it came came down to that mental fortitude and I think for me that was a really cool takeaway from a perspective standpoint as an athlete just realizing I knew that I had the physical strength but then truly realizing in the moment that it mattered that I had the mental fortitude and the grit and the resiliency to just go out and do it um was really neat I love that that word grit I think is the best word in the English language let's move to uh to Rio and I'm going to um reference a blog post I think it's only a couple months old so you you said in a you talked about in your September blog post about the challenging journey to Rio and that you learned um that there's far more to the journey than medals and and you have a quote that you say life is defined by the fight the heart the passion the grit um the determination the journey and most of all the community the very people that gave me the courage and strength to fight for this dream in the first place and and I was originally going to ask you but that that London story is so awesome but it seems like almost in some respects what you went through and I'd love for you to share the story at Rio probably made a bigger impact on you than many other competitions can you share that with us Rio um hands down was one of the most difficult and rewarding competitions of My Life um in March of 2014 March 5th I had a very very very severe injury um a shower bench in a hotel in New York broke in the middle of my shower and dropped me to the ground and I came down all all my weight majority on my left arm and I and as a result have sustained permanent nerve damage they say almost as much as 75% function in the left arm is gone I no longer have range of motion in my wrist I don't have grip strength my pinky and ring finger have no range of motion left in them I've lost you know tricep bicep the whole bit strength I mean the arm is it's it's toast and unfortunately I also have hypers sensitivity with this nerve damage so unfortunately I'm not numb like I am with my paralysis I am hyper hyper sensitive so the softness of touch hurts the feeling of the water on my skin hurts everything hurts and so that's a really tough thing to work around as well and so I was out of the water for 6 months um I didn't think I would ever be able to get back in I thought that I was going to have to retire I thought my dream of Rio was gone and I didn't know what life looked like without swimming because at that point in my life I had grieved my paralysis with first of all two strong arms right and second of all following a black line and using that as my place to figure life out and now you potentially lost that and now I lost that or so I thought and I remember reaching out to my high school swim coach he hadn't coached me since I was an able by swimer in high school and actually my my fiance boyfriend at the time was the one who called him and said we need your help Mal's got to get back in the water and so he uh we set up a time to meet and Steve had the summer off because he's a teacher and we got in the water and I could swim all of like 30 minutes the first day and we only swam a couple days a week and we at that point thought my arm was going to get better and then we realized it wasn't ever going to get better and we slowly but surely decided that we were going to make a go for Rio and it was a crazy dream all the way up until April of 2016 I was doubting whether or not I'd be able to make that team come July 5th if I was going to be named and I had no idea if I was going to be able to do it were you still in that same classification or did they change it still in the eight class and now down an arm so I uh I had an uphill battle to say the least and it was it was really tough I mean we got to a point where where training I I literally would push myself so far every day that I would end practice throwing up for lack of there's no other way to say it I was I was puking because I was in so much pain and my body was just shutting down and that was part of the deal though I realized I kind of made a pack when I got back in the water that I would see the journey through and as long as I gave everything I had as long as I gave my best each and every day throughout it whether or not I was named to the team on July 5th 2016 I would know I gave it everything I had and so trials rolled around and started off very very Rocky it was the last weekend of June first weekend of July and um we we came through and sure enough on I'm sorry it was July 3rd that I was named um sure enough on July 3rd we we had our team naming and I was named for the team and it was really funny how they did it they had all of us athletes go into a ballroom at the hotel but our family and coaches weren't allowed in and it was just like a roll call alphabetical order and you just sat there and waited we don't have the instantaneous response that you get at the Olympic swimming trials we're top two automatically are going it's all this equation so you find out the next day after the meet's over as we're sitting in this ball what did you think going in like 50/50 or where I thought I had a really strong chance because the night before the final session in my 200 IM I swam a time that put me fifth in the world so the only way to guarantee knowing 100% you're on that team is if you're top three in the world metal metal potential um but I was pretty pretty solid that I would be named but nonetheless there was still a lot of anxiety given the journey going in and so I remember being named and going out and I had my my t-shirt in hand my Team USA shirt cuz we were getting ready to go to the park for the media and my coach and my family and my fiance were there and they saw me and they just all down tears I mean my coach especially is the last person in that group I expected to see cry I knew my fiance would I knew my parents would I knew I would and was that still the same High School coach it's my so he's not the coach that coached me going into London and he's the one who got me back in the water after my Army yeah your old high school coach she actually was my very first Club coach when I was seven he was my fied teacher in elementary school he coached my older sisters in high school and myself and um then he helped me get back in the war after my arm injury and so it was a pretty remarkable trials experience and then we went into Rio and and I went into Rio with with the thought that if I didn't medal if I didn't you know make a shot at defending my gold in the 53 or Come Away with a medal of any kind than it would have been a failure at that point in my career I'd never not metal not medal right and um and Rio was really tough uh my body didn't hold out the way I wanted it to my arm the past four or five months has progressively been getting worse uh came to a head unfortunately in Rio and I remember the 503e um towards the end of the program I was swimming all seven IND idual events which was a big feat I had a few fifth place finishes but the 50 free my my bread and butter from London I swam prelims I had a great prelim swim but I came out 10th and I didn't make finals and I was devastated I was heartbroken absolutely heartbroken and I went into my final race on September 17th it was my dad's birthday it was a 200 I am I was in lane 2 the same Lane I was in when I Lane 2 not a good Lane for nons after lane lane is my baby that's like my good luck charm right um but outside Lanes traditionally I like it um Some people prefer to be in the middle of the pool Lane four or five um but I was in lane two and I think for me that moment was probably the highlight of my career I think that moment was almost bigger than the gold medal from me from London and I say that because when I went out to the blocks I had nine people in the front row 20 M down the pool that stood up with all their American flag gear on and um they were cheering my name and it was my my parents and my sisters and my fiance and his parents and his sister and my coach it was nine people strong and they were standing there cheering for me as I went on the last race and I thought I was going to come with the medal that night and I uh I finished the race with a career bus time uh I have been that close to it I since 2010 and since then I haven't gotten within 8 Seconds of the time that I went that night but I got fifth place and I remember turning around and looking up and those same nine people were standing up in those stands cheering for me and when I looked up in front of me in the stairway of the stands I saw my coach and he had both arms in the air and he had tears in his eyes and and I think for me it was that was what it was about you know there's no metal that would have made that moment any better than it already was what do you think um cuz you said you were very disappointed earlier on in in those games what changed you know cuz they would have been there they were there before right like was there something was it your mindset that changed or I think it was realizing how far I'd come yeah like all that one I didn't even think I would make it there I thought I'd be retired and even in April when I was down there for the test event I swam times at that meat that wouldn't have even put us on our team and so you know I think there were moments throughout my 100 meter breast stroke I entered in the 100 mirror breastroke 2 weeks before trials I wasn't even supposed to swim it I hadn't swam breast stroke since 2012 until 2 weeks before trials and I made the team in the hunter breast stroke and then I went to the games and swam it and came away up with Fifth and I was like oh I mean it was 10th off my best a tenth of a second to be exact off my career best time a time again that I hadn't touched since 2010 and so I think it was realizing that as hard as some of the events were a lot of why I wasn't able to perform in the way that I wanted to my arm was shutting down and that I could not control I can't control Tremors I can't control losing feeling and function in my arm I can't control how my body is going to work from a neurological standpoint I can't control that I can only control how I mentally approach the situation and I had worked too hard to let my arm injury rob me from enjoying the experience and I just wanted to enjoy being on Team USA I wanted to enjoy cheering on my teammates I want to enjoy racing I want to enjoy my time with my family and take the experience in for all that it is and so as disappointed and heartbroken I was on some of those days I think the the just pure love and passion for the sport really kind of I guess won in that battle it was hard some days but but I I was loving every moment of being there because not all that long ago I didn't think I would that's such an incredible story um I want to Pivot so almost kind of G in Full Circle we talked about what does resilience mean to mallerie I have a bunch of questions on this so a couple quotes once again you're good for quotes um it's not the moments that define us it's how we respond and then another one is we all have the ability to change the world which we talked about and and one of the questions I have is I think a lot of people irrespective of disability but just are stuck in this world in in different circumstances um and I think they they cognitively understand these quotes but are challenged to act meaning you know when it's like oh that's a great quote that inspires me but a great quote can inspire you but how do you move to action yeah um that's a really good question something honestly I feel like I've been thinking a lot of about as of late uh in the fact that we often find ourselves like you said stuck right we're going through life and it's it's all about just going through the movements right now at this time of my life I'm supposed to be doing X Y or Z and we just kind of follow those movements but we don't really know why we're following the movements we just are you know it's kind of at my stage in life I'm 27 you get married you you buy a house you start a family and it's like this you know I mean we're in the height of wedding planning right now right but you know it's interesting I've thought about it even with wedding planning right you have if you're engaged for a year you go on brides.com or any of the magazine sites the not you name it and there's the checklist of when you're supposed to do everything it's those movements right and so it's the whole question of Are We simply just going through the movements or are we living with purpose and that ask yeah that is a hard thing to distinguish between sometimes especially when we feel stuck and if we're stuck how do we find our purpose and I don't know that there's a recipe I don't know that there's again another list of items you have to follow to find your purpose um it it's just perly taking the time to slow down you know and we all find these moments I find them where I just I'm spinning a bit and you got to force yourself to just stop and step back and slow down and take it in and and ask yourself that why and think about your values or think about where you came from or why are you why are you even doing what you're doing in the first place when you started this on day one why did you start it even if that was 10 15 20 years ago why did you start it and I think being able to understand the why is what will help us have kind of that action plan to become unstuck and start finding our purpose and figuring out where we're at do do you think so this going to I'll be an odd question but but I'm wondering if your injury compelled you to find your purpose maybe earlier than you would have is that true do you think oh yes so what about somebody that's doesn't come a and maybe it is like you said it's just stepping back and you know realizing what life is about it's not just just kind of this this journey that's already been pre-ordained for you it's really thinking about what matters but I guess since that time have you even adjusted your purpose um again meaning like the injury is what got you to think differently but but what I'm trying to get at is constantly do yeah I think you constantly have to adjust that purpose I'll I'll use an example for me in my swimming career right now I've I've gone to two par Olympic Games I'm a two-time par Olympian that's all great and dandy I'm going to go on for Tokyo 2020 for my third games but my purpose between now and 2020 is different than my purpose was between 2014 and 2016 my purpose going into Rio was all about redefining limitations and redefining what was possible because in so many ways it was literally seemingly impossible for me to come back from the injury that I had and make it to the games but now going into 2020 my purpose is about I'm getting older as an athlete and I don't want to wait until I retire to start having an impact on the sport that I love I want to want to do it now I want to leave the sport better than I found it not wait until I leave to make it better and so my purpose for 2020 is that I mean I still want to be a fierce competitor but I want to take the time to Mentor other athletes and to make sure that when I retire whether it's after 2020 or 2024 that I know wholeheartedly that I did my part in making the sport better than it was when I found it and so in that example alone your purpose is always changing and it's changing with your life and where you're at and the stages you're in and you know if you have young children your purpose is different than maybe it is if you're now an empty nester and in your professional careers it's different you know when you're just getting into the industry than you know now if you're a named partner or you've you've kind of climbed the ladder and made it into a different role and now you're more of a mentor and leader versus being the mentee and so it's kind of this ever evolving purpose that we have but we constantly have to reassess that do you think there's a linkage since we're on purpose from purpose to resilience yes I think knowing that you're living life with purpose allows you to be more resilient I truly do because you know what matters meaning you know what you're trying to bounce back from to a certain degree you know what your values are you know what you stand for you know why you're doing what you're doing which gives you more confidence to fight back and to have that resiliency and I think even sometimes by being resilient is what also helps us find our purpose so it's kind of both ends of the spectrum um but I definitely think that there is a link between the two so I'm going to move to your 10 tips on personal growth oh and you know what I actually so sometimes I I I I have a a LoveHate relationship with top 10 yes I age for anybody that's out there go read them because I'm only going to talk about two of them but they're they're really really good um and the two that stood out to me was the first one was no matter how hard it gets remember that it always can be worse the time you need to grieve but move forward and remember to be thankful for what you have and and the the the question I have for you is there's always somebody that has it worse and I guess the question I have is when you're at a low point in life how can you cultivate gratitude or be thankful that I think is a very difficult thing to do um and you've shared some stories not just the initial injury but but some of the other setbacks how are you able to cultivate gratitude or be thankful in those situations you know and I know this sounds so silly and so simple but it truly comes down to that choice we have to consciously choose to see the good in any situation and that is a personality component that is just kind of part of who you are you get two choices in life and you can either go down the negative path or you can follow the positive path and if you you go down the rabbit hole of the negative path it's going to be really hard to get out of it right and I back up though and say there are times where all of us have moments where we literally cannot help but look at the negative because we feel so stuck we feel helpless we feel we feel like we're spinning in circles life is just too hard and I say in those moments and in when I've been in those moments throughout these especially past nine years for me finding gratitude and having that Grace and remembering who I am and what's important to me I've done so by leaning on my family and the people that are important to me and it's been those people that have helped helped lifted me up and brought me back to where I need to be when I physically cannot do it alone because I don't think we're expected to do it alone that's why we have loved ones and family members and mentors and coaches we're not built to just tackle life one person we're built to have a community around us that helps us and lifts us up and celebrates the highs and helps us through the lows and in return we are also expected to be the same for those people and um so I think for me when when life gets hard and you're trying to figure out finding that gratitude and you can't do it alone you got to lean on people around you second quote Yeah remember in any situation it isn't the circumstances that Define us it's how we react to them that defines this and and we've touched on this a bit but how do you change your mindset from from from from really the situation to the solution any thoughts on that yeah you know I talk I've talked a lot about community and I know it's kind of like beating the dog when it's down right when you keep talking about the same thing over and over again but I really truly think I can think of I'll say my arm injury let's use this example yep probably harder to get through than my paralysis was I'll be honest and I think that's because it was a build effect in the fact that I got through my paralysis but my swimming is what helped me grieve I had two strong arms I figured out how to do life I was 100% independent I could do everything I used to do just a little bit differently and then my arm entry happened well I think I only had one strong arm and I'm like I now I literally no matter how hard I try there's just things I can't do with one arm right so the long and short in that scenario finding a way to realize it's not those moments and circumstances that Define you it's how you react and taking the situation and finding that solution I think for me really truly did come down to allowing myself to realize and that more so than my paralysis forced me to realize that we are not at it alone and in order for me to find a solution I had to let people into my life I had to be willing to ask for help I had to let go of that pride and realize that it's okay to ask for help it's okay to lean on people and it's okay to have them help lift you up when you can't do it on your own and so for me in all of these circumstances that is where I have found the strength to start finding a solution is by leaning on the people in my life who know me and love me enough to remind me of what my values are what about um and my my guess is you're going to link it to what you just shared but did you ever have any doubters oh 100% are you kidding me we all have doubters I still have doubters I have people that think I'm crazy they must Propel you though in some ways knowing you right yeah I um I actually I mean it's it's kind of it's kind of corny but I still journal and I still I still do all of that and and not long after trials I I had a I had a journal that I was writing and it was basically kind of like my my thank you to everybody who said I wasn't going to be able do it because there's no Greater Joy than proving people wrong sometimes especially as a competitor and I know for a fact when I came back from my arm injury there are people that believed that I was foolish and that I should have never tried to come back and I was better off to retire and I'm sure the fact that I didn't meddle in Rio made some people happy as horrible as that sounds I'm sure it just kind of proved their point of you know I'm never going to be able to be the athlete I once was but but for me I competed in Rio with Grace and dignity and pride and everything it took to get there and and and you have to focus on the people that lift you up and not the people that tear you down and if you're going to focus on the people that tear you down use it as motivation because there's no better motivation sometimes than a good doubter to that's true so um you talk a lot about the power of journaling um how did that help you how has that helped you over the last nine years and actually even before we get into that did you Journal before I did a little bit not a ton not like I have and how has it helped you and maybe any guidance or like how it's helped you and how it could potentially help others I think for me it really helped me slow down it helped me stop it helped me think about life it helped me get my emotions out positive negative indifferent thoughts whatever it may be and it allowed me have a place to go that was safe that I could just put it on paper get it out of my mind and be done with it close my journal go to bed and and I like that because some of some of my best thoughts have come out on paper um but also some of my most needed kind of you know the anger and the emotions I just need to let go of have come out on paper too and and and you got to let go of that stuff you can't just hold it in you but you also don't want to be the person that's going around airing your airing your dirty laundry and me a negative nany and doing the whole bit to everybody in your life and so you need a place where it can just be your own and swimming is that for me but I also found a lot of healing in writing and I I kind of was able to get a lot of my thoughts out and find a lot of answers but I think the biggest thing that just forces me to do more than anything is just slow down you're a good writer by the way I love how much of your journals um translated into your blog a lot a lot I I I started journaling purely for myself right journaling was never it something that I ever envisioned sharing with anybody it was a personal thing it was kind of a spiritual healing thing it was my version of therapy quite honestly um and I I did that and it wasn't until 2011 when I went to give my first speech that I finally shared a journal with my parents even and I only did that because my dad was going to be the audience of the speech and I was going to read it during my speech so I figured I'd give him the give him the honor of hearing it first right um but I realize as I've read back a lot of them were very kind of rhetorical and more thought-provoking not the dear diary today I did this and this you know October 2008 I remember writing a journal that I've referenced in some speeches that was all about change and I never thought that these journals become public but now that I've realized the power of writing and sharing a story I've started sharing them a little bit more publicly and and a lot of my blogs quite honestly I just write them and it it to me it's a journal and then I'm like you know this might be a good one to throw out there and share there's only probably two or three that I've actually been given a pointed topic um that I've then gone and started writing about that topic which I'd love to do more of it but most of them are purely just me sitting down thinking about life and turns into a Blog how did you get into the speaking piece of it because I think that's pretty cool uh dad threw me into it gosh good old dad so my dad um works for an environmental consulting firm and he's he's one of the partners and they after my injury you know I knew a lot of Dad's colleagues growing up and this and that and when my paralysis happened they really wrapped themselves around and were very very supportive we were very fortunate for that and then I was nominated for an ESP in 2011 and so everyone got excited you everyone send out mass emails and voting and all of this and I ended up winning theb and that was a really big high in my career um and so afterwards they had their partner meeting that September of 2011 and Dad came home one day and said you know oh they wanted to know if you want to come out to Baltimore and just just chitchat with a few folks you know very Minnesota chitchat yeah and uh so we I was like sure you know I love your colleagues whatever let's I'll go to Baltimore we'll do dinner no big deal well maybe about two weeks before maybe maybe more like a week and a half dad dropped the bomb that I was actually talking to not just a few but the 300 partners that would be present who let's keep in mind probably 280 of them were men and I was 22-year-old girl and I had a 90 minute keynote slot on stage and I was like he never told you n i mean butes I thought I was going to dinner and just saying Hey to a few colleagues I didn't think I was their keynote speaker so I had never given a speech I got a C minus D plus something crazy like that in high school speech class CU I was terrified of public speaking and I started reading journals when I wanted to figure out what I wanted to say and that's where this whole kind of thing evolved and I think for me what I found in my journals was the rawness and the the common theme of talking about vulnerability and and I decided to kind of if they're going to give me the stage I decided to try it out and I felt like the most powerful way that I could share my story was by being vulnerable especially I feel like in Corporate America you know we are you know we're buttoned up and we we kind of we're closed in sometimes and I I truly I'm being being sometimes not all the time you know you got casual Fridays nowadays right no I'm just kidding um but what I noticed was when we're vulnerable we're the most connectable right and so as a speaker my I felt like my job on stage isn't to just share my story it's to have a conversation with the audience and I know that I'm not receiving verbal feedback in this conversation but it truly is a conversation and and the audience is body language and their mannerisms I I can read that and and you the audience actually does respond to you in a speech through their body language and I find that fascinating and I really read off of that in a speech and so I kind of that's how I went about that first speech and it went really well and I and I loved kind of that feedback that I got through body language and just that communic aspect of realizing this is just a conversation about talking about life and getting people to kind of break down their barriers be vulnerable have them kind of be comfortable with the uncomfortable for a little bit and talk about some real life things that we're all dealing with what do you think so so now you've been doing it for 5 years what do you think folks that you present to or actually I like how how you couched it it's more of a conversation it's actually not really a speaking engagement or presentation it's a conversation what do you think they take away or have you gotten any feedback and what trying to do is connect your story to kind of what they take away in their life you know one of the really big things and it's interesting because I feel like everybody is so different on what they end up taking out of this but one thing I talk a lot about is in order to be especially in corporations and speeches in that environment I feel like I do hit on in order to be professionally successful we have to take the time and put it back into our personal lives and they feed into each other if we are not personally successful and in a good place in our lives personally we can't expect ourselves to be professionally successful they don't it doesn't work like that you can't just go to work and forget about your problems and so one of the things that I do talk about like I said is a lot of that vulnerability and how do we get through the moments in life how do we support each other whether it's family members or colleagues and and how do we be a how are we a team how do we work as one how do we allow ourselves to really lean on each other and one area that I get a lot of feedback is I do talk about how a belief that I have kind of come to realize since my paralysis is that we all have a disability everybody has that thing in life that they're struggling with that that thing that ultimately can paralyze them if if they allow it to and so for me it's a physical disability but for some it's it's mental it's emotional it's spiritual it's familial it's Financial it could be fear-based I mean it's a million different things but we all have to figure out how do we navigate through that how do we allow ourselves to get our disabilities and allow them to enable us and not disable us and and that's a point actually last night I had a speech here and and the audience when we talked about that their body language completely shifted and you could see them and I talked about how my disability as a wheelchair user is very evident everybody around me knows what I'm struggling with but in that room for instance nobody knows what their peers are struggling with with their colleagues or family members or loved ones are unless they're vulnerable enough to talk about it and in our society that's kind of taboo we don't talk about our problems and it was interesting to see the shift in that audience of how when we started talking about disability and vulnerability and how we how we find ways to really allow ourselves to open up in a way that allows us to all be able to connect at a deeper level everyone's kind of like sitting back looking around the room it was set up in a horseshoe it was a small group and and it was interesting how the body language shifted and and I always find that fascinating and every audience is different the takeaway because a lot of themes are different um I you know I think you've hit on something that I believe kind of my to my core and I I I don't know if I've used this in the podcast before but I always say you never know the devil somebody's dealing with yep and and I and and I was going to ask you this earlier but I I moved past it but what guidance or what advice would you have for those people that maybe and maybe you guys shared this last night that um how how can people get vulnerable how can you try to understand that devil somebody else is dealing with or that unseen disability like you talked about I honestly think the biggest way is you just have to have Grace right you have to have compassion and empathy and just slow down long enough to realize that just like you have a bad day and you have stuff going on in your life and you know everyone else does you know somebody may come into work one morning you may be frustrated cuz you have a big project and you know one of your team members just doesn't seem like they have it together on that day and instead of being quick to jump to assume they didn't prep maybe slow down and realize something may have happened last night or this morning in their life maybe there's a reason deeper than them just seeming a little disheveled as to why they're not prepared in that moment for whatever it is that's going on and I think that just having that moment where we let ourselves slow down enough to have that Grace um will allow us to to understand um potentially what somebody else might be dealing with and they may not ever tell you what they're dealing with but just give them give them that the that space and give them the the benefit of the doubt you know what I find too and I think this is what you're a master at is telling your story because When You're vulnerable and this is one of the things I try to do with my teams like I do not believe that you can live a life at work where you kind of divorce from your personal life and what's going on I just I find that so silly especially when I spend more time with my teams and my family but I find and I don't go all the way there but if I share some of the challenges that I had growing up or at work or things that maybe I wouldn't normally want to air to a lot of people then that opens them up too to share their story as well yeah no I really do I believe in the power of vulnerability and the fact that I truly truly do believe that it connects us that it at a deeper level and and especially when you're I mean you talk about in the professional setting we're working together as team we need to be able to be a cohesive unit that can kind of really really capture and you know get that task at hand taken care of and and if you're just kind of passing by the night and you're never actually on the same page because you don't understand their personality to the core it's not going to work it's like my teammates you know that I that I race with it's the same thing in the athletic world as it is the professional world I know what my teammates need when they need it they know what I need when I need it and we're able to work as a team better by understanding people at a personal level so what's cool about your speaking role is you probably have been exposed to so many different types of leaders um and and and you've actually touched on all these so it's great that I wrote These in my questions but when I think of you I think of somebody that's authentic optimistic determined now I'd actually put vulnerable to the list um but what do you think are the most important characteristics of leaders in this world and it doesn't necessarily need to be just corporate it could be you know anyone um you know I'm going to repeat the word but I truly do think in order to be a good leader you have to be willing to be vulnerable Y and you know you have to have I believe a level of compassion um to really be able to understand where other people are coming from um you have to have a little nature of being authoritative too and having that Authority and and not saying that you have the answer to everything but sometimes being a leader means whether or not you're able to be the leader because you're you're questioning what's going on around you you just somebody has to make be the decision maker and unfortunately as a leader oftentimes it falls on you whether you like it or not and somebody has to take that stance and help kind of bring the group under their wings a little bit and guide them through a tough time and so you know I think of even from a coaching standpoint and looking at you know if I look at my relationship with my coach in in the sport he is he's the leader of our program and and he is the one that kind of at time whether he is certain that it's going to work or not I need to know that he has confidence in it and being confident in the plan and the task and and understanding that um he may be questioning a few things but sometimes I need him to come across as though he's got it all under control I know what yeah I know what you need to do yeah and sometimes you need that um in your in in a leader and but I really think that just that vulnerability and just that compassion and ability to truly just slow down and understand what's going on around around you because in order to lead a team you have to know your team I mean Absolut you got to know the personalities you're working with you need to know the people to the core take an extra five minutes to know them you know for my coach knows on certain Bas he knows my personality and knows I will keep pushing unless he stops me and so some days he just has to stop me and say you know what M we're done today we're done going isn't going to do us any good we're done for the day and I think the same thing goes in a in a professional setting where you know if if somebody seems to be having a rough day and they're just not productive in the workplace if running's their thing yoga's are thing biking's are thing whatever their thing is just say you know what it's been a long hard day why don't you just leave or today let's just call it quits and come back tomorrow and sometimes just having that gauge on your on your team on your people yep final two questions this has been so incred I could have asked like 20 more questions but this is awesome um what's next for you what's next oh gosh the laundry list um I'm going back for 2020 that's the goal right now uh I'm currently actually working on getting strong enough so I can walk down the aisle with my dad on December 30th that's the big personal goal in my life I'm going down to the Mayo Clinic twice a week right now working with my therapist using custom leg braces and the whole bit so I can uh walk down the aisle on my wedding day um which is pretty exciting because my fiance obviously came into my life after my injury and so there's a lot of people in that church that haven't seen me walk since 2008 and a lot of people that have never seen me walk and then I I'm really enjoying having the time to devote to my speaking and my writing and I'm working on getting ready to hopefully put a book out here in the next couple years that's what I was going to ask when's the book coming y so I we've been working on it I'm learn to be patient because the story is still evolving and I really want to do it the right way so one thought though I have is that I will I'll be publishing within the story that myself and my co-author write we will be also publishing my journals from throughout the years to really bring it back to that raw voice because I'm all about kind of that rawness throughout the story and making sure it maintains that Integrity so the speaking the swimming the writing um I've been really getting passionate about advocacy as well so um kind of just helping change perception our society of what disability really truly is and helping kind of again I want to be sure that when I leave the sport I leave it better than I found it and I think that sport has the ability to transcend and we can use the paral Olympic movement as a way to really change perception of what disability looks like in our society so let me um this is a long quote but I want to read it because I have one last question for you okay so hopefully I can read it well U so the quote is for me I feel lucky for what happened back in 2008 because since that day I've been able to appreciate life in a way that I never did before I have found that happiness and joy in the simplest of moments and that is my hope for everyone else that just for a minute they can slow down and look around and see the beauty in life because it is truly beautiful if we just allow ourselves to slow down and take it all in the question I have is you know in some respects your journey sounds like it's a blessing as crazy as that may sound um my question for you is if you could go back to the pre-2008 mallerie what advice would you have for yourself I think if I could go back to oh gosh me before all of this I would I would just remind myself to be patient with the process and that life works out it always does and to allow myself to truly take it all in because you never know when it's going to change you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow you don't know what what um what twists and turns are going to be thrown your way I mean you just there's no certainty and you just have to allow yourself to slow down be patient and just enjoy the here now and not constantly rush to the Future because I think so often it's what's the next task at hand or what's the next goal or where am I going to be next year and we forget to think about what we're doing right now and um I think that's the biggest thing my paralysis has given me is the ability to just appreciate the moments for what they are well and also it sounds like live in the moment as well it is yeah I mean and this may sound really silly but I'll say one of the the biggest things that I miss about life before the injury it's not the actual Act of walking it's not the big things it's the feeling my toes between the Sands and feeling the waves weigh in on my feet when I'm standing on the beach but you know what I could put my hand in the sand and when I'm sitting on a beach you know just remembering back to what that used to feel like and appreciating that moment because for me that's a moment that I can try to recreate but it just won't never be the same and that's okay and it doesn't necessarily make me sad but it's the realization that it's not the big moments that you look back on and miss when life happens it is the little moments it's the simple moments it's the going for a run when you know that winter season turns to Spring and it's you know 30° out in Minnesota and everything's Brown and melting and it feels like it's 80 because it's been- 20 and everyone's going out for their first run of the season and for some people it's the only run they go on all season but it's just kind of that Nostalgia and you know missing being able to do some of those things and those are the little things so I think I would remind myself to be patient and uh just enjoy life for what it is I I that is such a great way to end it and and I think if we could all just spend a little more time living in the moment being mindful being patient life would be so much better so I definitely agree thank you thank you so much I appreciate it this is [Music] great that was incredible that is one of the most inspirational stories I've ever heard you know I've interviewed a lot of people but to hear the personal Journey the personal struggles that mallerie has gone through is was truly um The Once in a-lifetime conversation for me it was uh very inspiring and and you know I I sit here and I wonder if I would have the strength to rise above like mallerie has would I be able to find purpose in life would I be able to give back to others after going through a tragedy like that that's something I'm going to think about I want to thank everyone for listening to resilient a deoe podcast produced by rivet radio you know if you haven't had an opportunity this is your first episode go back and check out some of the other episodes we have some incredible interviews with some iconic CEOs board members and leaders also I'd be extremely grateful if you could just spend one minute providing a rating on iTunes it's super easy you can hear us by going to deo.com or visiting your favorite podcaster keyword resilient also hit me up on LinkedIn or Twitter with any comments or recommendations for future guests my profile is under Michael Kerney or M Kerney 33 on Twitter last name spelled k a r NE Y and remember leaders who Embrace risk improve performance and are more prepared to lead confidently in the volatile world we live [Music] in