How Melissa Stockwell Refused to Let Losing a Leg Slow Her Down

Some people would view the loss of a leg as a tragedy, or at least, a significant obstacle to pursuing the path they’d painstakingly planned out for themselves. For Melissa Stockwell, my guest on this week’s episode of #WeGotGoals, losing a limb offered a second chance at a lifelong aspiration. As a young gymnast, she’d always dreamed of going to the Olympics. She practiced twice a day. Her walls were covered in Team USA posters, her entire life decorated in red, white, and blue. Her love for her country eventually took her to the Army and to Iraq, where in 2004 a roadside bomb took her leg. While recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, she learned about the U.S. Paralympics. That, she knew, was where she needed to be. “Here I was, an athlete with a physical disability, and I was being told that I could compete on the world’s biggest athletic stage and represent a country that I defended over in Iraq,” she says. “What greater honor would it be to wear that USA uniform on that stage?” Stockwell picked a sport—swimming—and trained hard. She made it to her first Games in 2008 in Beijing. The experience was incredible but the results, not what she’d hoped. So she transitioned to triathlon, stayed dedicated, and won a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. Standing next to her teammates on the podium—Americans took all three medals—was the ultimate payoff for all her challenges and sacrifices, she says. And it was all the more meaningful for having come after another major feat—having her son, Dallas. “To be in Rio on that podium as a medal-winning mom was really just really one of my greatest accomplishments,” she says. “I mean, when I think of that moment, I think about everything that went into it and just how amazing it was to be there.” Her path to the medal stand offers one compelling example of the way she digs deep to find the positive in any situation. But it’s far from the only way she’s wrested control of her own narrative, turning challenges into opportunities to transcend them. Sure, balancing training, speaking gigs, her role with the Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club (which she co-founded), and two kids under the age of 4 often proves tricky. But rather than bemoan her lack of time, she maximizes every 15 minutes, and draws a deeper motivation to push ahead from her children and the athletes who come through the Dare2Tri program. Of course, training comes with its peaks and valleys, days of exceeding your expectations interspersed with not-so-great rides, swims, and runs. Each day, she pinpoints one thing she did that drew her closer to her goal, even if was as simple as getting off the couch. And yes, she’ll be 40 by the time of the next Paralympics, in Tokyo. Her competitors are far younger, have fewer responsibilities. But age has brought her wisdom and a desire to show her children—she now has two, including eight-month-old Millie—that hard work pays off. So she’ll do everything she can to make it there. We won’t be surprised to see her on the podium again in 2020. Hear more about how Stockwell is working to involve women in the sport as chair of the USA Triathlon Women’s Committee, what tips she has for other busy moms trying to achieve big goals, and the special way she commemorates the day she lost her leg on this week’s episode. And if you like what you hear, subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts.   --- Episode transcript: JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me,I have Kristen Geil and Cindy Kuzma. CK: Good morning, Jeana. KG: Hi Jeana. JAC: Good morning. And Cindy, you did the interview this week with Melissa Stockwell. Isn't that right? CK:Yeah, I'm Melissa Stockwell is a Paralympic triathlete. And she's also a veteran, she started an organization called Dare2Tri that helps other athletes with disabilities get into the sport of triathlon and fall in love with it as much as she did. She's an incredible guest and I was so excited to talk with her. KG:Melissa lost her leg in Iraq and throughout it all she's remained incredibly positive. How was she able to do so with such a traumatic experience in her past? CK:Yeah. I wonder how much of that is sort of integral to her personality and how much of it she learned along the way, But she really focuses a lot on finding the silver lining in difficult experiences. In fact, there's a great story about how she kind of has turned the loss of her leg around. I don't want to give too much away because it's, um, pretty fantastic the way she's turned that into a positive for herself, but really she just focuses on finding whatever she can to kind of make the story her own out of whatever obstacles she's faced and overcome. And you know, you can't control everything in life she talks about, but you can control your reaction to it. And she has really tried to do that to make her reaction in a positive one. JAC:And along the way, going through that experience in them becoming an athlete, she adopted this sort of interesting way to set and achieve big goals. Can you talk about how she uses small steps to achieve big goals? CK:Sure. Like many of the accomplished athletes we have on the podcast, you have to have a big goal, right? Like you want to be a Paralympian, an Olympian, and you want to be the best in the world, but it's pretty hard to just set your sights on that and then wait for it to happen. Right. You have to do a lot of work along the way and she talks about how she every day just tries to do whatever she can to achieve that goal. And then at the end of the day she writes down one thing she did that took her closer to her goal. So even if things didn't go exactly the way she planned, even if she had a run that wasn't great, at least she got out there and ran or she did something she didn't want to do and that took her a step closer to our goal and then she can reflect on all of those accomplishments later on and realize how much hard work she really did and how she's prepared to achieve what she set out to achieve. KG:And her life would be easy enough if all she had to do was train for triathlons or whatever sport she's competing in. But of course, that's never the only thing you're doing with your life at one time. There's always other things that demand your attention and your time. So how is she able to manage her priorities with a family and with a career? CK:So, she definitely has a lot more responsibilities now with the family, but that actually has helped her connect to a deeper motivation to her sport so she can't always do as much training, but she is really motivated to stay active and to show her daughter and all the other women out there that you can continue to have a career and a full life and be an accomplished athlete. So I think connecting to that really helps her continue to achieve. JAC: And here’s Cindy, with Melissa. CK: All right. This is Cindy Kuzma from aSweatLife and I am here on the #WeGotGoals podcast with Melissa Stockwell, who’s a Paralympian, and the co-founder of the Dare2Tri program. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us on the #WeGotGoals podcast. MS:Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. CKNow. Melissa, you just came back from a couple of trips I know, including to Sarasota for the American Championships. Is that right? MS:I did. I, um, in my first race back kind of post having my baby Millie who is eight months old today. So yes, I was down in Sarasota doing a race and it went quite well, much better than I expected it to. CK:That's always awesome