The Art of Bouncing Back with Coach Dar

Welcome to True Grit and Grace. Thank you for tuning in. Before we get started with this week's episode, I have a really special announcement, something I want to share with you. Um, and I know it's really important because there's been a lot of resistance around it. Um, I am doing an event in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 10th and 11th, and the day that I went to launch this event, I woke up and I lost my voice and I got sick for 2 weeks. So I got a little better. If you've seen me posting on Instagram, you've seen a little bit about this event. But as I sit here sharing this right now, my husband is in the hospital. Things have not worked on the back end. And I'm like, gosh, there's been so much resistance that I know that this event Has got to be something really, really important that is going to change lives. It's going to transform not just your lives, but your business. I've created this intimate experience. Only 100 people get to come because I wanted to create something smaller on purpose so you can build meaningful relationships. And success is built on relationships. There's no way I would be getting on all these stages and sharing my story if it weren't for the relationships that I've built. And you know what?

It is.

Great to connect online and meet people. But the real deals are made when you get in the room, in the back of the room, in the bathroom at an event. When you get to know, like, trust someone, that is where the magic happens. That is where those relationships form. So come join us in Raleigh, North Carolina, March 10th and 11th. It's coming up soon. And y'all, I've got 12 speakers coming in, flying in from all over the country. They're top coaches, um, podcasters, bestselling authors. So if you've got a story that you want to share, if you have a dream of getting on a stage yourself, if you've got a dream of starting a podcast, if you really want to build your impact and your income, then get in the room because it will transform your business. It's going to 10x your business. And I know it can be scary going, oh my goodness, I got to find childcare. I got to get on a plane. It has always, always made a huge difference every single time I get to go and be in the room and meet people who are like-minded, passionate, faith-filled, and ready to do big things. So come join the Trailblazers. Come meet us in Raleigh. I can't wait to see you and hug your neck. And by the way, my husband's going to be okay. He's a little antsy, but he's in good spirits. Hopefully he's going to be out of the hospital soon. And I'm just happy I have my voice back. And I can't wait to see you in Raleigh. So go to truegritandgrace/event/. Again, that's truegritandgrace/event/. Or you can just find the link in my show notes. And you know what, VIP is sold out. But we do have a little—

we have a few general admission tickets.

And I promise even with a general admission because it's such an intimate experience. You're still going to get the red carpet experience. You're going to get lunch. You're going to have fun. You deserve to do something for yourself. So go get registered today. And if you're listening to this, I want to give you a special deal because I appreciate you tuning into True Grit and Grace. Just put in FRIENDS20 in the checkout and you'll get an extra 20% off. Okay, now on to the show, but I really hope to see you in Raleigh.

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Hello, it's Amberly here. Thank you for tuning in to True Grit and Grace. I have been so excited about today's guest. I have Coach Dar here. She's got a new book called The Art of Bouncing Back, and I love her so much and her story, and I can't, I can't wait to get my book in the mail. I love her so much. I ordered a book for every single person in my mastermind. Um, let me tell you a little bit about her and then we are going to get into her story and how amazing she is. She's a board-certified occupational therapist, leadership advisor to top CEOs around the country. She mental skills coach to professional athletes. In fact, at this last event where I met her, she had a huge athlete lift her up on stage. It was the best entrance I have ever seen. She is a sought-after speaker and one of the most brilliant, inspiring speakers I've ever seen. Um, she inspires greatness in others with everything that she does. She has a gift of blending science, psychology, and leadership to help people raise the bar in their lives and instantly have transformation. She helps people break free so they can have breakthroughs. And so welcome to the show, Coach Star. Thank you for being here.

Amberly, I just love you. I love your energy. As soon as we met, I was like, I— well, I couldn't wait till we could meet in person, but I just felt like your heart is so beautiful that you just pour this love and inspiration that you feel like you've known you for years. So I just wanna say thank you for having me on.

Oh my goodness. Well, you, you are awesome. As soon as I heard of you, I went to your Instagram and started Like, y'all gotta go check her out. It's The Coach Dar on Instagram because all you share is so awesome. But I remember being so touched because I sent you a message and you actually like left me a voice memo back. And, and then I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get to meet her in person. And, you know, I go, I speak at a lot of events. I have, I have, you know, been to a lot of events. And I'm not just like saying this, but you are one of the best speakers I have ever, ever heard, hands down. When I got to hear a little bit of your story, I was blown away. I have goosebumps. I am not kidding. Just thinking about like what you have been through and where you are today. And so I— this story is all about turning tragedy to triumph. And the grit and the grace that it takes to overcome some hard things.

Yes.

Um, before you started working with like famous athletes and CEOs, and can you please tell the audience a little bit about kind of what you went through? Because, you know, people will look at you and go, oh man, she's gorgeous. She's got a new book. She's got it all figured out. But you went through a really hard time in your life, health-wise. Can you share a little bit about that, just to give us some hope and inspiration, encouragement?

You know, I'm the person that feels for when people go through things, and we all are going through things. We all have our challenges. I don't think I'm any different than anyone. I think just much like you, it's this resiliency that you build within, and you're so driven by your purpose that you go, well, what's my other option? And the way this started out for me is, one, I go even back before my own challenges. I grew up in a family where my mom was a barber, my dad was a tool and die maker, and they, you know, they did the best they could with what they had. We struggled. You know, honestly, them going to get groceries sometimes was a challenge for them financially. So we were gritty early on because we had to be. You know, we just— you just had to learn to survive with what you had.

Yeah.

And then my mom has a triple bypass heart attack at 40 years old. Wow. And she goes through, like, horrific things she has to go through at 40, which at 40, you're still— I mean, there's so much of life and so much was taken from her. But this woman, she got right back up in pain and everything and worked 3 jobs and kept pushing all the way till she passed about 3 years ago. So I learned I had a visual example, which is what we all need to be for others. But I had a visual example of someone who never gave up, who honestly didn't even complain going through it. It's not that she didn't hurt, but she just said, if I'm still here and God still wants me here, then let's keep going. So tee that up with— I'm an occupational therapist working in an amazing hospital, helping some of the tough of tough cases with traumatic brain injury, stroke, spinal cord injury, told they'll never walk again, told they would never be able to have the cognitive level past a 5th grader. Like, their whole life is turned upside down. And I was the therapist with a great team that walked in and said, no, we're not accepting that. You know, we're going to create a new normal. We're going to create a new path. But Amberly, as you know, the irony was at 25, I was married at the time. We had just bought the book What to Expect When You're Expecting. Couldn't wait to start a family. I'm Italian from the East Coast. I mean, we were The Sopranos. You just start your family, you know? You just build a family. That's what we do. And eating. But, you know, here we are and I couldn't wait. And at that time, I had hurt my back, sciatica. So I went to the chiropractor because nothing had been working. I had all this pain. And I go to the chiropractor and when they manipulate my neck, they rip the vertebral artery to my brain. Oh. Well, I'm bleeding in the brain and I don't know it. I leave the chiropractic office, I go home, and it's not until after That I'm actually at the hospital and all of a sudden the floor flips upside down and the ceiling's the floor and the floor is the ceiling and I can't see and I don't know what's going on. And it ends up subsiding and I just chalk that up to, I must have a sinus infection. Literally, I was like, oh, something must be pressure in my brain. Yeah, there was pressure. It was blood pooling. Oh my goodness. But I— oh, because you just, you just don't think that that could happen to you ever.

Yeah. So I have to ask you, when, when the— that freaks me out, by the way, because getting your neck adjusted is scary anyway. But now knowing that they ripped the artery, did you, did you have extreme pain right after that, or?

No, there was no pain when it happened. It was a tear in the artery that happened. And so blood started pooling where it should not be. And it wasn't until the blood filled up, like, the whole part of the vertebral artery that— your brain gets supplied by the carotid artery. So the front of the brain gets supplied by blood supply by your carotids, which are here.

Mm-hmm.

And then the vertebral arteries are the 2 that feed the back of the brain. So when this ripped in the back of the brain, I now no longer had blood supply to the left side of my brain. The— I'm on a brain injury and stroke unit, and now I literally am not getting blood supply to my brain the way it should. I just thought, what in the world? And they misdiagnosed this. They told me I had a tumor when they saw the image, which was actually a blood clot. So they misdiagnosed it, which it took longer to find, which, you know, doesn't help in the whole healing part. But all to say, it was that moment that they were like— when I found my own private neurologist, which I tell people, be an advocate for yourself, be an advocate for your health. You know when something's not right.

Mm-hmm.

So I ended up finding the neurologist and he's like, good news, bad news, Dar. He's like, the bad news is you have a blood clot in your brain. If you have anything that increases your blood pressure too much, it could dislodge any day and you could die. He's like, good news is over time, I think scar tissue is going to form around this clot, which will kind of be like a net and hold it in. But that's going to take time. So we don't want you to cough too hard. Don't train for your marathons that you are, by the way. I went to go see a high-risk group, and that's when they said, I know this is easy to say because we have children, but you should not get pregnant because it will increase your blood pressure, and there's a big chance that that clot will dislodge and you will die, but the baby could live. Do you want to have a child without a mother?

Mm.

I was like, no. And you're 25, and you're trying to make these decisions, and then you're like, well, I guess I'm not going to Have children in the traditional sense. And then I felt also really guilty, even though I didn't ask for this, that I couldn't provide a family.

Oh yeah. I'm sure that had to be so. I, I know that, you know, when my husband and I got married, we were told we couldn't have a baby and I mourned. I got so, I, I felt like this loss. Now we were able to have one later. I think she's my little miracle baby. I don't know how that happened.

Yeah.

We've like, we stopped trying and it happened, or we stopped, like we stopped focusing on it. Yeah. We kept trying but stopped focusing on, we want a baby, we want, and, and it happened. But did you go through a period of like mourning of, of the feelings of maybe anger, sadness, guilt? What, how did you get through that?

I don't think I went through it the right way at the beginning. You know, at first I was just kind of, I was almost numb to it. I really was. And you know what else is, I didn't want people to really know the severity of what I was feeling or going through, even from the stroke. Working at a stroke unit, I played it off. I totally dumbed down my symptoms. I masked them. I masked everything. I gave the help. I didn't want to receive the help, which is— I'm not saying the right thing, but I just thought like, wait, I'm the person that's supposed to help people and I'm the per— I don't want this to be a big deal.

Mm-hmm.

Then I felt like, well, this is going to— maybe we'll do surrogacy or adoption. Maybe there'll be other ways. And that just didn't end up coming to fruition. There's a lot of things that affected it. And then I started to get angry, and then the anger didn't help because then I wasn't handling it all the right way. And then, you know, after going through a divorce and after mentally just going like, what the hell just happened? I threw myself into work even more.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, well, I'm going to go fix healthcare. I'm going to go change things. And I was going back to school for business even before I got divorced. And then I was trying to— I became president of a healthcare company, and I was like, I'm just gonna go make the world better. So my work became the way I numbed things. I was building success around work, but I wasn't, you know, I wasn't dealing with the pain. And it wasn't until I started my own practice and there was time where I left it because then I really wanted to do it the right way. I knew at this point what needed to be done, but that's also when I started to feel everything. But that's when the true healing Started. It started when I allowed to feel it, where, I mean, Amberly, I had never felt what depression felt like. Like, I never was the one that was stuck. And there was a moment in my life where I remember my sister came over the house. It was summer in Connecticut. I just didn't even wanna get up. I didn't wanna get ready. I didn't wanna do the work. I didn't wanna do anything. And her and I, we, uh, you know, we're Christian and we were, we were doing a Bible study and she comes over and she says, listen to me.

Mm-hmm.

You've got to get back up. God gave you this new life, and he did not give you life to isolate or go back to old ways. He gave you life to go and serve. Like, you were made to do this, Star. And I was like, Denise, I know. I just— I literally don't understand. Like, I can't get— I can't get it going.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm the person that does this for people. Where did it go? And she, she left. And wouldn't you know, that was the time when BlackBerrys were still out. And I had shut my BlackBerry off, at least I thought I did. And I got devotionals Monday through Friday, and it was a Saturday, and my BlackBerry just kept buzzing and buzzing like I wanted to throw it through the window because I don't want to talk to anyone. It was a Saturday. And it was a, it was a devotional, and it said, I did not give you new life to isolate or go back to old ways. And it was a whole devotional on that. And that's exactly what my sister just said. And prior to that coming, I cried out and I just said, God, if you want me here, then you are going to have to give me the strength to do this because I cannot do this on my own. And that came through. And I don't know, I don't know how to describe it, but it was like an inner fuel that came in me. And I got up the next day, went to church, and I've never looked back. Never looked back.

Oh, oh my goodness.

It just was like I just needed— I could not do this on my own. I couldn't. It was like the heaviest weight. And you're— and you even are going at times, you know, you're going and you're going like, should I just give up on this? Should I just— maybe I should do something easier because Like, my goals are never small. What I wanted was never small. It's like so massive that sometimes I'm like, maybe I was like, I'm gonna go to the beach and start on a shack. Like, I'm gonna just help people on the water. And she's like, yeah, my sister goes, you'll start there and then you'll help people and then I'll help people and it's just gonna blow up again. So just, God didn't make you that way.

Oh, that, that just really moved me. And I mean, I've been there. I relate to your story so much because I became all into work and built this huge, massive fitness empire, and I did not feel any of the feelings, not until after I had my motorcycle accident and I was stuck in a hospital bed.

Yes.

And oh my gosh, it was hard to feel all the feels. And same thing for me, I prayed and I still pray, and there's been times I swear it was like A few weeks ago, I was about to speak at this big event, and I was getting so in my head and worried about it. And I was like, God, I don't think this is for me. I just don't think I'm meant to do this. I get so much anxiety. Maybe this just isn't for me. And I will get a message immediately right after that. Somebody from my church, they're Called me. Their name appears and their picture appears on my phone.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, what is he doing calling me? This is so weird. He never calls. And I answer and he is like, hey Amberly, I want you to speak at my event. And I'm like, okay God, that's a sign. Somebody from my church is calling to— and his event is gonna have 4,500 people. Here I was worried about 250 people. And I'm like, you know, I feel like we always get those signs. What would you suggest to someone who is feeling stuck to move forward? Like, they may be depressed. What should they do?

You know, this is where I go to one, meet yourself where you are for a second. Honor and grace, just like you say, like first meet there with the grace, like you're there where you are, but then you have to get the grit to your words, which I love, which is you've gotta start and say, okay, just like if we were in battle. Which, when we're fighting for our life, we are. And if we were in the military and we were on a mission and you had a soldier sitting next to you and it was to help save their life, like, you'd find a way. You'd find a way. Your life is that important. So when you're stuck, make a phone call to someone, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Start remembering the things that you're gifted in. Start remembering, like, in the book, one of the principles after we— Principle 1 is embrace the suck. The next one is understand Hardwiring. The reason I have people do that is understand your hardwiring and then lead to your why power is because when everything gets taken away, or when we get stuck, or we get downed, no one took away your gift. Even Amberly, at that moment when you're questioning, should you get up and speak? No one's taken away your gift at that point. Your mind is making you doubt your skill set, but your skill set did not get taken away, and your story didn't get taken away, and the truth didn't get taken away. Nothing got taken away from you. It was a little thought that came in that made you switch to doubt rather than confidence, God confidence. So we just need to switch it back, and we switch it back to God confidence by remembering how we were created, by remembering how we were hardwired, and remembering that if he brought us to it, he's going to see us through it. And you have the ability to do what you are equipped to do. If he's equipped you And you've worked on your gift and you've worked on your craft, then get up there and give it all you have and get in motion. After a while, when you've sat with it, you've dealt with it, you've got to get in motion. Pain could be like quicksand and it could take us down real quick. So we've got to have a strategy that puts us into motion because we are meant to have momentum. Momentum helps us, and the right momentum, just not stirring in circles, but That's what I would say when you start to get stuck. Really go back to how you're hardwired. Go back to your giftedness. Go back to what I call is your scouting card. It's, you know, in sports we have our scouting card. Write your scouting card. Write what the reason you got drafted to your own game, you know. And when you start seeing that, when you start seeing it, you'll go, oh, this is why I was the number 1 draft pick. Like, be your draft pick. Be the starter in your life. Work on it, work on your craft, but you're the starter. Don't let someone else take your spot that God is calling you to. Don't let that happen.

Oh, I love that. So I am so excited to read your book and all the— how many? So you said number 1, you have number 2. I don't expect you to go through, through all of it, but I think there's one part that talks about grit and resiliency.

Yeah.

How, how would you Just suggest for somebody who's like, oh, I, I don't know how to build my grit. I don't know how to be resilient. What would you say for them to do?

I think that grit is what— I mean, grit is one of my most favorite things because when you get gritty, when you start realizing that your human spirit is so resilient and you start embracing these things, like when it comes at you, you're going, okay, what is this teaching me? What am I supposed to do with it? You look at it as like, oh, this adversity just came. I'm going to use it to advance me. It's a grittiness of mentality. Okay? Grit. Yes, you could, you could be gritty in physical stuff, but I'm talking about a mental grit. When you mentally get gritty, where Navy SEAL training, when you're sitting there and you're going, what is going on right now? But you're going, bring it. Like, let me learn from this. Not that we want it. I mean, every time something comes, I want to be like, uncle.

I got it.

Like, I'm pretty sure we— you and I have the grit muscle and award.

Yeah.

But we can't stop it. So the mental grittiness happens when you look at it and go, I can't run from this, but I am damn sure I'm going to use this for good. That's where the grittiness comes, when you start seeing it as something that could be advantageous for you, not as an adversary. So when you start using adversity to be advantageous and your mindset starts going like, oh, this is making me better, when it starts getting harder and you're out of your comfort zone, you're like, oh good, getting in the cold plunge. No one wants to get in the cold plunge. It's not like you're like, let me get in 37-degree water. But you get in it because you're building mental grit. You're going, oh, I just won the day. I won that moment. What else could I win? This is the grittiness that you start to see in people that A lot of people that work with me, they'll go— someone called this, I didn't call it this, but they were like, oh, that's the DAR difference. And I looked at them because I was in the conversation. I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're like, DAR, it's so clear after you've worked with someone that there's a difference in their mental grittiness. Like, they show up better, they bounce back faster. I was like, oh, that, that is the most beautiful compliment because that's what I hope every day when I work with someone, that There's a change in them to show up, to be better, to handle this more, because I don't wanna lose people in this fight. I don't wanna lose another person in this fight for life. I need everyone to be in this game right now until it's decided when we get to go home.

Oh, I love that. Well, with your book, The Art of Bouncing Back, if somebody is having a hard time and they're like, I want to bounce back, but I'm just not sure how to get there, what is some advice that you tell them?

You know, when you don't know how to bounce back and you're stuck in it, I would say start by going back to the beginning of, like I said, just start writing down. Don't forget who you are. Start reconnecting with you because when we get stuck or we get hit, we lose identity with self.

Mhmm.

We start to forget who we are. So I need you to get back to who you are. Get back to remembering. how you were created. Get back to remembering the gifts that you actually have. Make the list. We start making the mental list of all the things that are going wrong. Make the list of what's going right. Make the list of what's good within you. Make the list of the strengths and gifts that you have. You want to bounce back? Start with the foundation of that. And then start seeking friends, people, circle, masterminds, coaches, People in your circle start literally getting the right bounce-back environment set for you, from the people to the space to the place. You know, you might be at home. Maybe it's— maybe it's redecorating, reorganizing, resetting up. It could be your locker room to the boardroom to your office to the family room. Maybe you need to shift the surrounding a little bit so it's inspiring for you again. If you just went through heartache, get the pictures down, you know. That person's no longer in your life. Close that chapter. Start with something fresh. Embrace it. Like, I'm looking at my office right now. I have quotes and words and books and colors and textures and fabrics and scents. You know, that's what I helped people come out of coma with.

Wow.

And in the book, there's the bounce-back environment where I talk about use all your senses for the ability to propel you forward. Well, I mean that. Look at your environment. Is it inspiring you? Or is it depressing you? Change it. Start to change it because your environment affects your mental fortitude.

Well, do you work with a lot of athletes, say, that have had an injury that has— they feel like they've kind of lost their identity because they blew out their knee or they twisted their ankle and they're not able to get back in the game? And so I could imagine they would get caught up in their identity being A pro player and now they can't play. Does that happen often?

Yes. And, you know, I had a player who ended up coming back from something they thought they'd never come back. And so he had an ACL tear, but a really bad one. And so that's when we started working and we started working on him. And he'd never worked on any of the mental skills. He'd never worked on leadership. He had never worked on— no, it was just, he was just good. You know, he made it to the NBA because He was really good. But you're 18, 19 years old. No one taught you how to be the CEO of your life. No one taught you what leadership was. No one really taught you about when you get hit, how do you build mental resiliency to get back up? Like, there was— there's actually not a lot. I mean, now it's become where it's more, but when— for as long as I've been doing this, it really wasn't. And so during his injury, we worked on all of this to build mental foundation and skill. So he finally gets back. He gets back to start the next season. He's a leader. He's inviting all the other rookies in. He is on the media. It's going so well. He starts the season and tears his other ACL.

Oh.

And now he— I was, I was feeling for him. And do you know what he said? He said, I got this. He said, because you and I working together, Help me be a better man. Help me build a better mental resiliency. He's like, I know how to handle this now, Dar. He's like, I'm going to work on this the same way we worked on the other one mentally. He goes, and I'm going to come back better than ever. And he did. And he ended up going to the finals.

Wow.

So I really mean this. What looks like, you know, there's the expression, don't put a period where God intended a comma. What looks like a period, like it is over, you are done. It's just a pause. It's— and, you know, a player just said at Super Bowl last week, he said, sometimes it's not a denial. He said, it's just that we just have to pause for a second. And he used another word, but what he was saying is sometimes we think it's a denial, but, oh, it's just a redirection. You know, it's just a redirection.

Mm-hmm.

And so he wasn't getting denied his ability to play. He was just getting a pause to build so that he could go to the levels he was being called to in the finals. Right? And even for us, we go through our adversity. It doesn't mean the game's over. A bad day, a bad year, even a bad couple of years does not mean a bad life. We've all been through seasons. Are you willing to stay in the fight? Are you willing to keep doing the work even when you don't want to? I just encourage you to show up again because it's in the showing up that opportunities come.

Just keep showing up. And I mean, Life. Yeah, yeah. One, one conversation can change your life. You are changing lives. I mean, you've been featured all over the media— the Today Show, Fox Sports, Good Morning America. You've already sold so many copies of your book. It's coming out soon. Where is the best place for people to get your book?

You could get it at— on Amazon. The Art of Coaching, uh, The Art of Bouncing Back. You could get it at coachdar.com, and then you could eventually get it in any Barnes Noble or bookstore anywhere. And so I just really pray that people share this because, you know, knowledge is great, but knowledge applied is wisdom. And so there's so much that's packed in here that if it doesn't get applied, then it's all for loss. All this 3 strokes trying to write when I couldn't even speak All this hard work would be for nothing. And I can't— I just, I don't accept that, you know. I just, I know in my heart that God called this, and I know that this could help people. And so I, I encourage you to get a copy, to share it with people. This is not a book that you just buy when you're going through hard times. You want to get this and start reading this now to build the mental fortitude before hard times come. Or just— and by the way, hard times don't need to be catastrophic. It could just be Where you have sometimes some hard days, just a bad day. This is going to give you the tools just to mentally reframe it, to know how to shift from a bad day to a good day so you don't wreck your day and week and month from a mindset.

Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, yesterday was a hard day for me. It was like a marathon of Zooms compared to other things that I've been through. It was an easy day, but yesterday it felt really hard. And I love that you say get this book. I think that you should work on your resiliency and your grit before you actually need it. So when adversity comes or challenges come, you already have mentally what you need to get through those moments.

Totally.

And now also, I have to say, like, your website is beautiful, by the way, but y'all, are you still gonna have this up for a couple of weeks where if they go to your website, You can buy multiple copies of the book.

Yes.

And if you buy, I don't remember how many it was, you will actually give a virtual talk. Are you gonna keep that up there? Because that is like amazing.

Yes. You'll be able to get one of them is if you just buy a few copies, you get a masterclass. And so you get a few masterclasses, you get 101 coaching tips that I share. You also could get a virtual talk. So This is your time to seize the, the ability to get more knowledge that I normally am not able to share now. And so there's preorder bonuses that you can go over at coachdar.com. And then the other thing too is you could follow, like Amberly said, The Coach Dar. I put so much stuff on stuff and stories on Instagram that I don't share anywhere else, that it's just mental tools, mental tools that sometimes like you just need to hear someone say it a little differently. So I'm sharing tips and tools all the time for free, paying it forward. And also on Fire Chat, which is an app that I have a show on, you just get some mental fuel. So I can't give what I don't have. So every day I fuel my mindset with stuff that I listen to. So this is a way for me to fuel other people.

Oh, well, thank you. Just one last question before we go. How long did it take you to write your book?

So I started this in 2012. And it was not called this. It wasn't even the premise of this. But I knew that call to start writing, and it was going to be about awakening greatness and how to awaken into your greatness. I didn't know. So then I get years into it and it doesn't go. It's not working. And I'm thinking, I really thought at that time, like, this isn't supposed to happen. Maybe I'm not supposed to write a book, and maybe I'm doing this because I want this, but is this really what I'm being called to? And then I have a stroke.

Oh, goodness.

And the third stroke. And so after that stroke, it was so hard, but everything teed it up, perfect timing, because my sports agent said to me, why are you making God so small? He did not call you to play small. You are meant to get this book out. And I'm like, Kelly, I can't even speak correctly at this point right now. And so there's where it birthed The Art of Bouncing Back, which was supposed to be a chapter, not a whole book. And then between my agent and my publicist, my publisher, they were like, let's create these principles to help people bounce back, which was being written through COVID. And by the way, when I finally got a publisher that said yes, they wanted it written. I had a book proposal, but I hadn't had the chapters outlined or written. And they're like, we want this done in 4 weeks.

Oh my gosh.

I was like, wait a minute. What? Like, your first draft, get it done in 4 weeks? I was like, this is like David and Goliath. I can't even speak correctly, you know? And so then I ended up being— but I think pretty much we wrote a book in, let's see, I would say 4 months it ended up getting written, which—

Wow.

That's in the book world, you know, it's— you usually you get a year to 2 years to get your whole book kind of crafted, but So this was in super— it took a long time and years, but by the time the writing happened and I still have my coaching practice, I was working until 4 in the morning, like, day and night.

Oh, my goodness.

Day and night.

Wow.

But it took a lot of work to get here. But they wanted this out because who doesn't need the tools to bounce back right now? Like, there's no time like now.

Yeah, for sure. This is so needed. So needed. So I'm just always curious about that.

Yeah.

I'm so excited. I'm hoping I get it in time to just take it and hand it personally to everybody in the mastermind. And I will take a picture and share it of everybody holding up your book. Thank you. I just appreciate you so much. Y'all head on over to The Coach Dar on Instagram and see, she really does provide, like, I have shared your I love your videos, your stories. And take a screenshot of this. And if you tag me, Amberly Lago Motivation and The Coach Star, when I see that, it makes me feel so good. I reshare it in my story. But let's show her some love. Go grab her book. Have you done a TED Talk before?

No, it's on my bucket list.

Oh, my gosh. I just think that that is next. I say that because I love watching you speak, and I'm like, I want to send people where they can see you speak. So, yes.

Okay.

Well, that's gonna happen. Yes. That's next.

Okay.

Thank you so much for joining us on the show. I appreciate you, and I hope I get the— a chance to share the stage with you again really soon.

Me too. Thank you. Thanks.