Episode Transcript
Jeff Tiessen: Welcome to Life and Limb, a podcast from Thrive magazine all about living well with limb loss and limb difference. I'm Jeff Tiessen, publisher of Thrive magazine and your podcast host. My guest this episode is Michael Laughlin, Canada's first and only above knee amputee, full time firefighter. How he got there is truly a remarkable story.
In his mid-20s, Mike was badly injured in a snowmobile accident, but he defied the odds and returned to firefighting. Shortly after his 30th birthday, he came home to find that his girlfriend had taken her own life…a tragedy that saw his grief ultimately turn into a battle with addiction. Life tested him again in his 30s when he hit a deer on his motorcycle. He emerged from that catastrophe with multiple injuries, including the loss of his right leg above the knee. He defied even greater odds this time to return to the Kingston Fire and Rescue Department. Again, Canada's only full-time above knee amputee firefighter. And he's an author, too, a book called Untapped 60 about resilience, perseverance and perspective that released just last year. Mike, welcome. How are you?
Michael Laughlin: I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Jeff Tiessen: Oh, pleasure. Real pleasure to have you on. And yeah, I got a chance to read your book and was just fascinated by it. And it's so educational too. I mean your life story is really something, but how you added in a lot of that content to help us sort of learn more and explore more in what relates to our own life. So, congrats on that and let's start with the book again. Like I said, a fascinating read and I want to work backwards, sort of a reverse engineering chronologically of your life as you share it in Untapped 60. So, the book is clearly about adversity and turning that into growth and self-discovery. And what really struck me is how honest and vulnerable you let yourself be in the book and you really didn't shy away from pain and the struggles in your life. So the name, where did that come from, why you wrote it and who did you write it for?
[00:02:22] Michael Laughlin: So, the name Untapped 60. It's been said—not scientifically proven, but it's been said that when you're at your worst…say a soldier out on the field has been critically wounded…you can either lay down and die or you can dig deep and find that next level to survive and save yourself. It's been said that when you're at that worst spot, when you think you're going to die and it's all over, you're actually only 40% spent! You've only used 40% of your human potential. They say there's 60 more percent there to dig into. And it's the people that can tap into that 60% and keep going that survive. For me, laying in the ditch, there was that moment where I was like, okay, that's it. I wanted to close my eyes and just give up and just lay down in that ditch. But—I tapped into that 60%. So it really hits home for me. Is that Untapped 60? It is there. I know it is. I've done it. My goal is to teach everyone that they can also dig into that at their worst and overcome anything they're going through.
I wrote this book with my best friend, Jarrett Robertson, and our goal is to motivate and inspire everyone and anyone to overcome what they're going through this day and age. There's so much going on with mental health and addiction. And obviously the struggles that amputees have and people that get in accidents…all the stuff. And so we just want to motivate and inspire. We want to make this for everybody. We want to make it an easy read, but we want people to actually get something from it. Not just read ‘Me. Oh, yeah, that's great’. That guy moved on. We want someone to be able to read the book and say, ‘Wow! You know that's crazy what he's gone through. But here are some tricks for you going through life, tips to overcome what you're going through.’ Not just, just look at me, what I did. We want to work on other people, too. And so our whole goal to help people. Yeah, our goal with this book is make it easy to read and learn something from it.
[00:04:42] Jeff Tiessen: I agree, good point. I mean, both of us being in the amputee community, when I started reading it was thinking it's geared for those who have lost a limb. But like you say, I picked up early on, this really is relevant for anyone that is struggling, going through adversity, needing to dig a little deeper. Right?
[00:05:05] Michael Laughlin: Absolutely. Yeah. And that's that I'm top 60. We get that question a lot because it's a different title; it's a different name, right? And so we like it when people ask, because then we can get into a conversation and hopefully help everyone.
[00:05:18] Jeff Tiessen: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I'm sure it will working backwards. Like I said, motorcycle accident. And I know you were raised on a farm and you've said that even as a really young kid, you just loved horsepower and steel—I think that’s how you put it. Anything with an engine! And that's where your love for motorcycles began. Then, ironically, I suppose the freedom and independence that you loved about motorcycles is what took away from you. (Actually a deer). You had already been tested with tragedy and catastrophe. You know, this was kind of like trial three, you might say, you essentially saved your own life on the side of the road while waiting for medical help. So, share a little bit about that experience and then we're going to talk about kind of digging into resilience a bit.
[00:06:14] Michael Laughlin: So, I was riding along 4pm. It was still light out, it was a back road of Kingston. It's known to have lots of wildlife around. I was driving along, not going fast, not breaking the speed limits or anything like I normally would have, and out of a corner of my eye, I see a flash of brown and a deer comes into the ditch and runs into the side of me. I got in a little bit of a speed wobble. I didn't actually go down right away, but once I got control of the bike again, there was a 90-degree turn in the road, I tried to make the turn and I'm scraping the peg of the bike. I'm turning so hard. I'm almost making it. And then the back tire catches the loose gravel and I just felt the bike shoot out from under me. I remember going down and being like, ‘don't hit your head, don't hit your head’. Being a firefighter, I've seen it so many times. You know, the head injuries are The End all right. So I tried to ride it out of my butt and I bounced off the road, into a deep ditch. I watched my legs (I went in feet first) and my leg snapped off at the knee, then in comes the bike after me, hits the rock and lands on top of me. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, I've done it again’, because I've been in an accident once before. I thought I was going to die in that first one. So right away, I go into, you know, fight. I'm gonna fight until I can't go anymore. I grab the bike and I flip it off me and I look down and my legs are dislocated at the knee, holding on by some skin. There's blood. I pull my belt out. I tourniquet my leg. I start fishing for my phone. I'm shaking really bad, but I'm like, I gotta get this phone call in. I found the phone and I called the fire department. I didn't call 911…I phoned the fire department because I know them. I knew the girl on the other end of the line. I screamed, ‘I'm in the ditch on Northshore Road at the end. If I go unconscious, you know where I am. Come get me’. She actually kept me on the phone the entire time, the 17 minutes I was in that ditch until someone showed up. And so while I was down there, a car drove by but it didn't see me. I was down low. I was in a fairly deep ditch.
I was like, you know, what? If I had just laid there, I might have been there for days, thinking back. I started throwing bike parts that had broke off the bike up on the road. I took my helmet off and I threw it up on the road. And the next car stopped. Anyways, I was able to stabilize myself enough and get the phone call in. And then I heard sirens. When I heard the sirens, it kind of gave me that, ‘okay, I might make this. I might not die’. So in that meantime, the car that had stopped was a little old lady. And she had come to the edge of the road and looked down. It was a pretty gory scene -.the ball of my ankle was showing, my foot was ripped off, my leg was exposed. It was a mess. And I thought she was gonna look at me and be like, ‘Nope’, and beat it. Right? And meanwhile, she doesn't. She walks down in the ditch, and she puts her arms around me, and she tells me it's gonna be okay. And I needed that. It's what I needed. At that time, I was alone in the ditch. I was telling fire dispatch to tell my family I love them. I'm gonna die. And when she came down and did that, it just changed everything. I felt like I was gonna make it. And I like to tell people, this day and age where people walk over top of someone on the sidewalk laying down and they see an accident and drive as fast as they can the other way. They want nothing to do with it and they just go around it.
But you could be that person that she was for me. So you never know. If you have a chance to stop and help someone, always stop, take the couple minutes and stop. You could change the outcome for that person. I like to speak on that quite often because it's such a turning point in that time I spent in that ditch when she stopped. Once the fire department got there, they packaged me up and into the hospital I go. It was a long ride to the hospital way in the sticks, all the way into KGH and Kingston. When I got to the hospital, I didn't know this at the time, but all of the entire fire dispatch and headquarters chiefs training division, they were all listening in on this call and they were listening in, me screaming and yelling, you know, telling them I'm not going to make it and say bye to my family and everything. So when I got packaged into the ambulance, they had all driven down to the hospital. And when the ambulance backed up to the hospital, the door is open, it always chokes me up, but there was a tunnel of fire department personnel waiting for me. They wheeled the gurney through the tunnel and they all just kind of said their thing. And at the end, the chief leans over and says, Mike, no matter what happens, you'll always have a job at KFR. Wow, right? So I was a 36-year-old man and thought I had just ruined my entire life. And it’s not the first time I thought that. But this time I'd really done it and I needed to hear that. Good on him, Chief Sean Armstrong, who ran down there and really loves his people and did that for me, because that kind of gave me that little bit of drive. I'm like, ‘Okay, if I've got a spot, I'm gonna do this right from the beginning, never knowing the outcome of what happened to me.
[00:11:41] Jeff Tiessen: What a story of a good Samaritan and the brotherhood and sisterhood of firefighters too. Right? All in one. You had a long road of recovery and rehabilitation, no doubt. What I found interesting is that you didn't waste any time in looking for the best prosthetic device available. I think it was that focus of returning to your job, returning to firefighting. But I understood from your book that the prosthetic leg represented more than just a mobility device. Let's say for you, if I understood it, it was a renewed sense of purpose and passion for you, right?
[00:12:22] Michael Laughlin: Absolutely. What, along with my injuries, everyone sees is the lag, but I actually broke my neck in two spots and broke my back in three spots. I had two 12-inch rods in my back as well. And so, you know, that's the stuff that's unseen because of the lag. It's so visual. But the lag, I remember sitting there and I kind of knew a lot for three or four days. They reattached the leg for a little bit and it just didn't take. It died. And I remember the doctor came in, he's like, ‘Mike, I got bad news’, and I knew it was coming. And he said, ‘We're going to amputate your leg’. I actually cried and grieved with my family for about an hour. Then, like you said, I was like, ‘Okay, I can't change this outcome. It's happening whether I like it or not’. I remember saying to my dad, ‘See that iPad there, Dad, grab it. Come over here’. I said, ‘Google, what is the best prosthetic leg in the world?’, because that's the one I'm getting. And he's just like, ‘Okay, whatever, right?’ We Googled it and it was the Autobot X3 at the time. I'm like, that's the one, that's the one I'm going to get! And you know, lo and behold, four months later, I had one. I've had four of them now, but it was like a new identity, right? I wasn't Mike Laughlin, the hockey player, the firefighter. Right? You know, big time jock, basically. That's how I grew up and always was.
But now, it's like, you're an amputee. You're Mike Laughlin the amputee and you have something to prove here. Right? And so when I found out that it had never been done before, I went to the chief and said ‘Listen, we got gotta get this done’. I told him I wanted to come back to the floor. I wanted to be a firefighter. And he said, ‘Well, it's never been done before. It's kind of a tricky situation. But, if you can pass the physical test you did to get onto the fire department when you started, you can keep your job’. I went out and trained my butt off. The guys at the fire department went out training with me in the training grounds every day. I went back and I did that test and just destroyed it! I actually had a couple times better than two-legged people. I wanted it so bad. It was a new identity for me. I'm Mike Lachlan the amputee now. And as you know, when you become an amputee, it's a very noticeable thing and everyone has questions. Then it became a mission. I wanted to help people. I've done this. I've tackled so many obstacles and this is the biggest one. If people ask, I want to be able to help them, too. My identity changed. It was more than just getting a prosthetic leg. It was like, this is my new leg, this is power. I think a lot of amputees use that as their superpower.
[00:15:01] Jeff Tiessen: You led me nicely to the next question. I want to ask you about that test where you had to run up flights of stairs and pull rope and carry heavy weight. All that stuff that firefighters do in the line of duty. It was a pass or fail scenario. This was no participation badge waiting for you. Right?
[00:15:21] Michael Laughlin: Right.
[00:15:23] Jeff Tiessen: So what's going through your mind? You're confident you. You've done the work, but there was the worry that if you failed…
[00:15:31] Michael Laughlin: Yeah, there was nerves. There was definitely nerves, but, good nerves, because I had trained so hard and I was very confident in my abilities. I knew what the test was; I knew what to train for. I wasn't going to go into that test unprepared. I brought back that competitive nature from hockey. I grew up playing hockey. I was even drafted by the Kings of phonics in the OHL. I was a captain of the Tier 2 team here. I won a national championship in fastball. Sports are in me. Here that competitive nature brought it right out of me again. I was like, okay, I am not losing. Whatever I have to do, I will do. If I have to do it on one leg, I'll do it, right? There was never any doubt in my mind, to be honest. I was moving forward as fast as possible.
[00:16:25] Jeff Tiessen: You still had to wait for the grade, the news that you passed; and had to endure the anticipation until you were told you are still a firefighter. What kind of emotion were you filled with then?
[00:16:37] Michael Laughlin: Well, my entire identity was at stake at that point. I am a firefighter, right? Mike Laughlin, the firefighter. Everyone in the small town of Kingston knows. half the damn city, right? If I fail, I felt, I'm kind of a failure. So when I got the news, it was like getting my life back. I’m back on track and now let's steam forward. It was a lot of emotions because it was a lot of work, a lot of pain. I put my family through a lot of pain, right? Dealing with all the stuff, you know, me, my poor parents, all the stuff I've been through. Now that I'm a parent, I understand it. Yeah, it was a big deal and a ton of emotion, but it was all worth it.
[00:17:24] Jeff Tiessen: I'll bet it was. That rings loudly through the book too. The book is so much about adversity and resilience, working back in time. Jen, your girlfriend who took her own life…it’s unimaginable for anyone who hasn't experienced that kind of tragedy. You were very honest in your book about it and particularly about the spiral of addiction that ensued for you afterward. And you also talk about how you found your way forward through mindfulness and self-awareness and self-care. A lot to unpack here, but can you share a little bit about how you cultivated resilience in that tragic time of your life?
[00:18:13] Michael Laughlin: It was the lowest part of my life for sure. Not only did I feel guilty for what happened; I know you're not supposed to, but at the time, you feel like it was all your fault. You let it happen. You let someone you love, you live with, commit suicide. And so, you know, I had been addicted to painkillers from my first accident in 2007 and I fell right off the wagon because I didn't know how to deal with it. I was masking it just like so many people do with so many things. With substance abuse, it's a lot about trauma and not dealing with things properly. No exception with me. It was 100% what it was. I spiraled out of control to the point where I got arrested for buying illegal painkillers. And then you think there's rock bottom, but there's always a trap door, and boom, another rock bottom. And it was like, not only am I drug addict, but now I'm I'm arrested, right? I'm a bad guy in the eyes of the community. And I'm a firefighter, right? I'm supposed to be helping the community. So talk about rock bottom. I just felt like I was useless. But then came kind of an intervention. My friends and family noticed what was going on and realized all these things were happening for a reason and confronted me and said, ‘It's time to change your ways’. I was like, 100. I just needed someone to wake me up. I use that, like you said, and just decided, I'm going to change my life, and I'm going to go to the gym. I would do all these little things that lead to success and lead to getting back on track. And that's what I did. I just started training again, working out, eating properly, did all the little things that keep you in the right lane. I got back on track.
I was doing good until 2016; then the motorcycle accident happened and kind of derailed me for a minute or two. But yeah, it was all about getting back to the basics. That's why I tell people that are struggling, let's get back to the basics. Drink water and eat a healthy meal, right? And then exercise. If your mind's going somewhere in the wrong place—exercise, right? Or phone a friend and have a chat. And so all these little things that I had to do myself. I preach it to everybody, but I have to do it myself. That's why I can tell people nowadays, it works. Just getting back to basic, fundamental, living life in a good way.
[00:21:04] Jeff Tiessen: When you talked about that reintroduction to painkillers, to be clear, that wasn't because of the motorcycle accident, that was from a snowmobile accident. So now we work a little bit farther back in your life. Your first accident, a harrowing experience. You're essentially alone at night on a lake, racing that machine in the darkness, hit an island, and you say to yourself out loud, ‘I'm dead’. You kind of defaulted to that. But that life or death moment, as I gathered from your book, was a spark for that discovery in you of how deep you could dig within yourself to find strength and resilience to save a life, to save your life.
[00:21:55] Michael Laughlin: Yeah. So, until then, until 2007, I thought I was invincible. I really did. I was a sports player, a hockey player. I was a fighter in hockey and didn't lose often. I never broke a bone in my life. I never had anything happen to myself. I thought I was invincible. I was actually with another guy going across this lake at midnight. It was snowing like a blizzard. It was minus 20 and we're going across the lake. I kept losing his tail light. I was trying to keep up with him because I didn't know where I was and he knew where he was. And so I'm following, I'm following, trying to keep up this taillight. I kept losing his taillight and speeding up and oh, there it is, there it is. And about the third or fourth time I lost his taillight. I was speeding up and speeding up and speeding up and I couldn't find him. I was not thinking. I was trying to catch this guy. I was doing 100 miles an hour across this Lagos on a very fast snowmobile, just ripping across this lake. I can't see, there's no visibility. Then I remember seeing the island about 10ft in front of me and letting go of the handlebars and thinking, ‘I'm dead’.
And then I sat up and I was like, oh my God, ‘I'm alive, I'm alive’. I looked down and my left leg is snapped off at the femur, grossly deformed. I thought, ‘What have I done to myself?’ I am sitting on this island in the middle of the lake after hitting the island and flying about 100ft luckily missing all the trees, or I'd be dead. It's minus 20 in a blizzard in the middle of nowhere, and this guy doesn't know where I am, this guy that I was with. I was sure I was going to freeze to death and die here. Not only am I broken, I don't know if I'm bleeding death, I don't know what's going on. So I pull my cell phone in my pocket. It was the flip phones in 07. I flip it open, hit 911, send. The phone dies. It was so cold. Those old batteries, they just wouldn't hold a charge. I throw the phone. I'm like, ‘What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?’
Every once in a while, there's a break in the snow, and I could see a cottage on the island that I'd hit. And I was like, okay, what do I have? I kind of took inventory of what I had, and I had a lighter in my pocket, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna light this cottage on fire. The flames will be 100ft in the air. The fire department will come, and they'll find me, and that's the only way I'm going to survive this. You got to understand, I could barely move. I shattered six inches of my femur. So I was dragging myself across the ground and then pulling my leg, dragging myself, pulling my leg, and in extreme pain.
You know, when someone asks, ‘Where are you at?’ 1 out of 10 pain. They don't understand what a 10 out of 10 is, right? So I was dragging myself. And eventually, about five minutes after starting my trip towards this cottage, I laid down and I just said, that's it. Just die. I can't do this anymore. I was in that much pain, and I was in that bad of a situation that I was just like, I can't do this anymore. And then things started going through your head, like, I can't do this to my parents. You know, I can't do this. I can't give up. You know, they don't deserve this. And so it gave me a little bit of drive to keep going, and I kept going. And about 10 minutes after dragging myself, I laid down for a second time, and I tried to die again. I remember that I was like, just get it over with. I closed my eyes and I started thinking again. I can't give up. It's funny what you think about these times. I'm like, my friends and co-workers and anybody that ever played hockey with me, they're gonna think I'm a wuss. I'm supposed to be this big tough guy, and this tough guy's gonna give up. Well, I'm going to go out fighting. So I started crawling again. And, you know, it gave me the motivation I needed to keep going. Then a couple minutes later, I hear this snowmobile coming back. And he found where I had hit the island. The snowmobile was in the thousand pieces. He shut the snowmobile off and started yelling back and forth. Eventually he got to me, got me up on his snowmobile and drove me to shore. He got me in a car and down to the hospital. I shattered my femur, broke my kneecap off, broke my tibia and fibia.
I woke up after surgery the next day, and I had this huge cast on my leg. I knew my leg was a problem, but I also had a cast on my arm. I wondered, ‘what's wrong with my arm?’ I was using my hands the whole time to drag myself and to get in the car. There was nothing wrong with my arm. And the doc's like, ‘Oh, yeah, there is. You have a compound fracture of your ulna sticking out of your skin’. I didn't even notice because I was in so much pain from my leg and I was so focused on my femur that I didn't even notice the arm problem. So, I have a plate in my arm that goes about that big. I have a rod for a femur and 33 pins and screws holding everything else together. Honestly, I was back at work eight months later, full duties. That was my first real test, like you said. I was 26 years old. I was in good shape. When they asked me to walk around the hospital floor once, and I do, like, 100, right? I was so motivated. I wanted to get out of there, and I want to get back to work. Still young and I took that lesson, especially after my second accident with a motorcycle. I was like, I've done this before, right? I know the blueprint to success. I've done this before and it kind of made the second one with way more severe injuries easier. I was able to use that experience from the first accident, that definitely helped me.
[00:27:32] Jeff Tiessen: Mike, I hope you don't have to pull that blueprint out again. Hopefully, you've topped out at three for yourself. Never again, that's for sure. Speaking of family, let's talk about some good stuff. The best part, life today. You are married with two kids. Angela is your wife, who you met, you might say, in the wrong place at the right time. Tell us a little bit about that. Where you met Angela and about life as a dad.
[00:28:02] Michael Laughlin: Yeah, so I was in KGH Hospital and after KGH you get sent to St. Mary's Hospital, which is like a recovery hospital where you learn how to be an amputee and how to basically get back to doing everyday life stuff. So, while I was in that hospital, I was bored one day because I was there for 30 days. And so I had done my physio in the morning and I was out for a little wheel in my wheelchair. I was a long way from getting a lag and so I was about £150, so I was half the man I am now. I had a neck brace on because my neck was broken and no shirt on and I looked like Joe Dirt in a wheelchair. I'm wheeling around and I'm kind of lost.
I didn't really know what wing of the hospital I was in because I just went through doors and said hi to everybody. I was actually looking, you know nurses, everyone knows they're good looking, a lot of good-looking nurses. I was going to look for hot nurses. I'm a 36-year-old single guy. So, I'm going by this one room and look in and I throw the brakes on the chair. I stop. I'm like, oh my goodness, that is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen! She's leaned over the patient talking to this woman. I found her, but I was in pallid care and this patient was unable to speak. I couldn't hear this nurse, but she still leaned over her patient, saying ‘you look beautiful today!’ I'm like, who is this angel who talks to people, right? This woman doesn't even know what you're saying, and you're still talking to them, treating them like a human. I'm like, it can't be. This can't be real. She's most beautiful woman I've ever seen and an angel. While sitting at the door, I get caught looking at her when she turns around. So, I just made small talk. I went in, made small talk for about 10 minutes. I got her name and left and made my way back to my room.
When I got to my room, I Facebooked her and said, ‘Nice to meet you’. I looked her up on Facebook. They call that creeping. Creeped her on Facebook, and said ‘Nice to meet you’. Later on after her shift, she answered ‘Nice to meet you’. And so time went on, and something was posted on Facebook by her, and I had commented on it, and we chatted for a minute, and I was like, yeah, I'm taking my shot. I asked her on a date, and she said yes. I figured she just did it to humor me, like, you know, you're a nice guy, but… Right. She had seen me at my worst, and she didn't know what I looked like at this point, but I started to look more like a normal person. My new normal self had a leg and stuff now. I was able to walk. And so we went for coffee, went for a walk back to the cars, and I did the worst thing you can possibly do on a date. I looked her in the eyes and I said, ‘I want to marry you and have children’. And she got in her car and left.
She completely ghosted me. Two months, ghosted me. Wouldn't answer my texts, wouldn't have anything to do with me. So. I'm like, well, I blew that, right? And didn't think much of it. Meanwhile, this girl was waking up in the morning thinking about this guy with this snow leg. And why would he say something like that to me? And maybe there's more to it, and all this stuff's going through her head. So she messages me back about two months later, and we go on a second date. And she said, ‘This time maybe just pump the brakes a little bit, Mike’.
So, we go on a second date and the rest is history. We got married in 2018. We have a five-year-old boy, Lincoln. Angela had a daughter when I met her, a six year old daughter who has down syndrome and her name is Kiana. Ironically, it's World Down Syndrome Day today, so this is her day. So she was really worried that I wouldn't want to take on the baggage of having a daughter with down syndrome. And I was like, are you kidding me? So once you learn about people with down syndrome and they're happy, they light up every room they walk into. It was exactly what I needed in that time of my life. You know, I'm a new amputee, getting back to my new life and she didn't realize how big of an impact Kiana had on me. Kiana, who wakes up every day happy, made a big impression. She's 14 now, she's in high school. And so like I said, World Down Syndrome Day is today. It was fun. So, yeah, honestly, that was all the things that I went through from 07, 2011, 2016, the PTSD, depression, drug addiction, everything in between all led to meeting Angela and now living my best life sitting here in front of you, trying to spread the word, trying to help people. It all happened for a reason. I just love my family and I love my new life.
[00:32:52] Jeff Tiessen: I led that with the wrong place at the right time. Maybe it was the right place at the right time. Hospital romance. You gotta love it, Mike.
[00:30:00] Michael Laughlin: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:33:01] Jeff Tiessen: That's great. Listen, before we wrap up, a couple things I want to ask you about something else you do, and that's your limb loss fitness program. What's your mission with that?
[00:33:10] Michael Laughlin: Yeah, so being Canada's first and only full time amputee firefighter, I have all kinds of questions put to me. ‘How do you do this, how do you do that?’ Because obviously being an above knee amputee and even a below-knee amputee, things are different in life and they're hard. I tell them I do pretty much everything I used to do, plus some. And so I get a lot of questions. Over the years I was just answering the questions and helping people out. Then I started to realize there's a lot of amputees out there that don't know how to get started at getting back in shape and getting back to their life. I wanted to offer a place where amputees can go to get a program, to eat properly, to count their calories and their macros and have a workout program and have someone to mentor them and motivate them. I do a zoom call once a week and see how they're doing and how their life is beyond all that, which is how's life? How are things? Are you struggling, what's going on? And so, it's fitness and coaching and life stuff.
I just wanted to help more people because I realized how many amputees struggle and don't actually get back to their normal life. We are really the exception. There's not as many that get back to where we are, many say they just can't. But it’s because they just don't know how. It's such a shock to their system and to their life, you know, losing a part of them. People don't know what it’s like unless you're an amputee. For me, I had it for 36 years and now it's gone and I have to learn everything all over again. And it was hard and if I didn't have the mindset I did and the discipline I did, I wouldn't have got to where I did. A lot of people just don't have that. They just need that help and a lot of time it's just talking to someone. And by the end of a 30-minute conversation, they're on the edge of their chair and I'm like, I'm going to do this tomorrow. This is so rewarding for me as well. But it's what people need, they just need people, they need an avenue to go to, to get a little bit of help, that little bit of nudge.
[00:35:26] Jeff Tiessen: Yeah. It really comes down to peer support.
[00:35:29] Michael Laughlin: Right.
[00:35:29] Jeff Tiessen: Hearing it from a peer gives it power, to hear it from somebody like you who has lived it and shares it so enthusiastically. For folks that are looking for your limb-loss fitness dot com, I'll share that again at the end of the show. One last one for you that really ties into what you were just talking about. Again, back to your book one more time. And in it you say, While the impact of trauma on the mind and the body may be profound, it's important to remember that we possess the capacity to overcome adversity and emerge stronger on the other side. My question, do you believe that can be true for everyone?
[00:36:20] Michael Laughlin: Yes, 100%. You know, everything we go through, all the struggles, all the traumas, it all adds up, and it all builds our strength and our toughness. We are all capable of coming in on the other side. And we just talked about it, some people just need a nudge. They don't realize that they have the capability to do it, and so they just need to be told. And, you know, let's do this, let's do this. Let's get you started on the right path.
I find once they get started on the right path, they're gone. All you see is the tail\lights! It's like everyone just needs a little bit of a nudge. So, yes, to answer your question, every single person can overcome what they're going through at this moment. Right now, there's no doubt in my mind if I can overcome what I did. And not once, but many times, let's say six times. For me, it wasn’t only the three big ones, but three small ones, also. PTSD, depression, drug addiction. They're like the little inserts in there. Those are the main ones that people are going through, right? Not the big ones. Everyone's going through these little ones, but they're big to them.
And so, one of the things I answer all the time is, oh, you know, my problems aren't anywhere near what yours are. So, I don't want to really talk about it. I'm like, hold on here. My problems are my problems. Yours are yours. Yours are important to you. It doesn't matter how big or how small. They're important to you. And let's talk about those. And so, yeah, 100. Everyone's capable of doing it. And if you need help, just reach out. There's people like me all over the place.
[00:38:03] Jeff Tiessen: Yeah, that's terrific. And you know, your goal was to be a firefighter, and maybe not what everybody's bar is, nothing that high. I don't mean to sound that is dismissive to any other goals, but what I'm saying is whatever goals people have are their goals. They are their gold medals, so to speak. You knew where your gold medal was.
[00:38:23] Michael Laughlin: Absolutely. Yep, yep.
[00:38:25] Jeff Tiessen: Back to that resilience and perseverance and perspective. I think a lot of it comes down to that, too. Listen, thank you so much for all you do for your community in Kingston and all you do for the amputee community as well, and for being so, so, so honest and authentic. That's really cool. It is a good lesson for all of us, that we can be honest and vulnerable, because that's what really led you to where you are today. There is that resilience in all of us if we dig down deep enough. So, Mike, again, I really appreciate your time.
[00:39:04] Michael Laughlin: Thank you very much. I've read the magazine since I became an amputee. I've been, you know, in Marty Robinson's offices here, V2 Innovations, and I enjoy it. And thank you for having this platform. People need it and you're making a difference. You really are!
[00:39:21] Jeff Tiessen: I appreciate that. Thank you. That's great to hear from somebody who's making a tremendous difference like yourself. So, folks, with that, this has been life and limb. Thanks for listening. If you are interested in Mike's book, you could order it on his website - untapped60.com As I mentioned earlier, if you're looking for some fitness help, coaching consultation, a chat with Mike, whatever it may be, limblossfitness.com and there's lots more about Mike on both of those sites, and his keynote speaking presentations too.
And you can read about others who are thriving with limb loss or limb difference and plenty more at thrivemag.ca. You'll find our previous podcast episodes there too. Until next time, Live well.
