Lessons - You Need To Ask For Help | Amberly Lago - Speaker, Author and Podcaster

Music Walk me through even the psychological state of you realizing that you are never going to really work in the same capacity or doing the exact same thing you did before. How did you overcome that? What were some of the steps that you took to just not just go down this really dark path that I think a lot of people would probably go down? Well, I did go down that dark path. I got to be real with you. I'm so stubborn. I'm so stubborn. And I'm like, to hell with that, I can't be a trainer. Watch me. Some of my most motivating moments have been when people have told me I can't do something. I was so excited to be released from the hospital and one of the last things a doctor told me, not not worth a pedic doctor. He was a pulmonary doctor. He said, I can't wait to get home and run again and train clients like those were my list like I had a list of things to do that brought me joy. And he said, well, I don't know if you'll ever run again and you'll never wear shorts again with all the scars that you have because my leg is completely scarred up. It's deformed. You know, my ankles fused. I've got a metal rod. You also own it though. I want to talk about that in a bit, but you own it now. I see it. Thank you. It took me a while to own that because I had a lot of shame. But I was determined to get back to working with me. I love working with people. I've been, I started teaching dance when I was 13 and I transitioned that into fitness and teaching, you know, clients and classes and that sort. And so I thought. At this point, I needed my clients more than they needed me. And I think that when you're going through something really hard, that it's so important to have a purpose or reason to get out of bed. And it doesn't have to be a client or a job. It can be as something as simple as you have a dog that needs to go for a walk. You have a child that, you know, needs you to be their mom, whatever it may be. Maybe if you have a garden and you need to water your garden, but there's some sort of purpose that helps you that sparks that sparks a little fire under you that gets you out of bed because I was really in a place where here I had survived this horrific accident only to when I couldn't get out of pain. And I'm telling you Scott, I was trying everything to get out of pain. I had a spinal stimulator where they put metal leads in your back, the nerve disease I have is ranked highest on the pain scale and it's dubbed the suicide disease because there's no known cure. And you're just in pain all the time. And so I was trying everything and anything. And I was always thought, well, if you work hard enough at something and you just keep pushing through the pain, then everything's okay. Well, I learned the hard way that you can't just keep pushing through and not acknowledging the pain. And that goes for whether it's physical pain or any kind of pain, any kind of feelings. You have to let those feelings rise up to the surface or else they come out and everything we do in life. They come out in our relationships and our career and the way we love and the way that we lead. And so I had never dealt with a lot of emotions and that took me down. I mean, I went from being this athlete and healthy to when nothing was working for the pain. And I was on 73 homeopathic pills and 11 different prescriptions a day. And none of it was working. And so I remember having a glass of wine and going, oh, well, this kind of helps. It helps me stuck down the pain, the feelings of being inadequate, the shame. Yeah, that's a dangerous path. Yeah, and it worked until it didn't and model and luckily it took me down and it took me down fast. And I had a moment where I think we all have this light inside of us and it never goes out. But mine was barely a flicker. And it was just enough to give me the courage to ask for help. So I would say anybody that's struggling in any area of their life. Sometimes you feel like you're alone, like you're the only one that no one would understand. Maybe you get caught up in your ego like I did and you're like, oh, I don't want to admit that I'm in pain or I can't do something. But when you want something and I think there's a gift and desperation and I was desperate to get my life back, I wanted more out of life. I wanted to be the mom that my kids deserve. I wanted to be the wife that my husband married. And so I prayed to God as God for help. And so whether you believe in a higher power or Buddha, God, nature, whatever, anything bigger than yourself, know that you're never alone. There's always something bigger than you that can help guide you and support you. But it really transformed my life when I took a good, hard look at what was going on. And I think that's what we have to do is stop, you know, take the blinders off, really accept what's going on in our life. Take accountability for it, then have the willingness and the courage to ask for help, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Now it's easy for me. Now I'm just like, I don't know how to do this. I don't want to do it alone. I don't think we're meant to do things alone. I think that we're as humans, we're meant to connect and support and love each other. And so if you're struggling with anything in your life, I think the first thing to do would be to take a look at that and ask for help, ask for help from somebody who we trust or maybe somebody that you know has already been through something and they've gotten through the other side of it. Because that was transformative for me when I actually am humbling to ask for help. And what was your, what was your ask for help? Who, who was the person that that helped you through this the most and what did they do? Well, I will say the first person I reached out to, well, I've asked for help in, in business. And I asked for help in my personal life when I was trying to get soberized, help from a client which was very humbling because here I was her fitness trainer and I knew that she had overcome or recovering alcoholic. So I thought, well, she will know what to do. And she's like, yeah, I'm going to help you. I'm going to take you to a meeting, a recovery meeting and I didn't hear back from her for a week. And the only reason I share that is because sometimes we ask for help and the people that we ask, maybe they just aren't able to help us at that moment. So it's really up to us to be willing to help ourselves and not depend on someone to help us. It's great to have help. So after that, I was like, no, I'm going to die if I don't, I mean, I wanted to die, but I was just too scared to die. I don't know if that makes sense, but I knew that this was a liver dye situation. Like either I was going to get help or I was not going to live. And so I googled recovery groups and I found the first available recovery group that I could go to that my husband wouldn't have to know about. And my daughters would be in school because I hid a lot of my drinking from everybody. I didn't want anybody to know. And so that really helped me. But in business, I've always asked for help. I remember, you know, honestly four years ago, I didn't even own a computer. So technology, writing a book, starting my own podcast, building a business online, having a mastermind online, that's truly a miracle. But that's why, you know, I had such a strong why, but I had to go, you know, I remember asking my help. I got asked to speak at this inspired series by the one of Jane. And they wanted me to send them a headshot. And I didn't even know how to attach a picture. I borrowed my husband's computer and I was like, honey, I don't know how to attach a picture to an email. Can you help me? And he was like, oh, what do you need again? And I was like, I just burst into tears. And I was like, I will figure it out. I'm going to the Apple store and I went and I bought myself a computer. I signed up to take a class. And in that class, I raised my hand over and over and over and the guys stopped the class. And he's like, I have to tell you something. I've never taught a class where someone has been like you and not embarrassed to ask so many questions, some are very basic. And I'm like, I know I don't know how to do this and I really need to learn how to do it because I have a message that I want to share, I have an impact that I want to make. And so I'm still learning, you know, I learn every day and sometimes it's hard and I think through COVID a lot of us have been forced to either learn and grow or stay stuck. And I'm here to say if you want more out of life, there is a way. If I can write a book that became a best seller. And the only reason I'm sharing that is because I had so many people like, oh, you write a book, you're the fitness girl. You can never write a book, you don't even own a computer. And I think it's really important when you want to do something. Stop asking people who have never done it before. That everybody's got their opinion and that's fine. But go to someone who can give you good counsel. That's why I think it's really important to have a mentor, a coach, be involved in a mastermind because when you go to someone who's already done it before, they're not going to say, oh, yeah, right, what you can't do that, they're going to get excited for you. They're going to say, you know what? That's awesome. This is what you need to do. This, this and this and that from experience, you know, and so I think it's really important. And so, yeah, I've asked for help from in my personal life, for my marriage, you know, it was a lot. I didn't, this isn't just my story. This is our story. He went to the hospital with me every single time through 34 surgeries. Now by the end by like surgery 30, he'd like drop me off and say, I'll pick you up later. He's like, slow down the car and drop me off. But you know, he's been alongside me. And so I think it's important to ask for help in in every way and every aspect of your life. And especially as an entrepreneur. You