Embrace It with Lainie & Estela - Smashing Disability Stigmas

Embrace It: Episode 53 Madeline Niebanck - Stroke of Luck

• Season 2 • Episode 53

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In this empowering episode, we sit down with Maddi, an extraordinary individual whose journey has been defined by resilience and determination.

Graduating from Georgetown University with a passion for Spanish and Justice and Peace Studies, Maddi's life took an unexpected turn when a hemorrhagic stroke left her paralyzed on her left side. Amidst her recovery, she discovered a new passion for fashion, channeling her love for the arts into writing her first book, "Fashion Fwd: How Today's Culture Shapes Tomorrow's Fashion," published in September 2018.

But Maddi's story doesn't end there. Driven by her own experience with stroke recovery, she embarked on a new book project aimed at inspiring survivors of trauma. Through her words and experiences, she aims to empower others to seize control of their lives and transform obstacles into incredible opportunities.

Join us as Maddi shares her journey of resilience, creativity, and empowerment, proving that challenges can be the catalyst for remarkable transformation and personal growth.

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Hosted by Lainie Ishbia and Estela Lugo.

Embrace It is produced by Launchpad 516 Studios.

For sponsorships and media inquiries, drop an email to: embraceit@lp516.com

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Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Embrace it series, where women with all types of disabilities can be real, resourceful and stylish. With each episode, you'll walk or roll away with everyday tips, life hacks and success stories from community leaders and influencers. So take off your leg braces and stay a while with Lainey and Estella.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Lainey and I have CMT. I'm a neuro-muscular disorder affecting approximately 2.6 million people worldwide.

Speaker 3:

That's as many as MS. We believe disabilities should never get in the way of looking or feeling good. Both of us wear leg braces and have learned through our own personal journeys to embrace it.

Speaker 1:

Brought to you by Launchpad 516 Studios. Each episode is designed to challenge your own stigmas and beliefs around disability. We want our listeners to get the most value for their time spent with us, so we interview some of the most empowering disability badasses in the world. Through storytelling, personal experiences and tips, we're all reminded of our own strengths and endless potential.

Speaker 3:

For more information and exclusive resources, check out our websites at trend-ablecom and hnf-curorg, and don't forget to hit the subscribe button for future episodes and special promos. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Embrace it. Hi, estella.

Speaker 3:

Hey Lainey, happy Labor Day oh yes, I don't know when it's going to air, but you know my birthday was yesterday. Happy birthday, thank you. You know Estella wrote me a beautiful well, I should say an AI robot wrote me the most fabulous poem and it was so nice. I had a great birthday, although having a birthday on Labor Day as a child was very traumatizing, because it was always the first day of school, like that time, and so my friends didn't have enough time to decorate my locker. But everyone made up for it. As adults I'm getting. It was very nice. It was an awesome birthday. You poor thing, yeah, how did you get that? People always say their like Christmas birthdays are big and shit summer birthdays. I say first day of school, no one pays attention to you.

Speaker 3:

But we're going to save that for another day. You guys, we have another fabulous guest. I know we say it every single time, but we really look far and wide for fabulous guests, so they really are Many of them super fabulous. So today is definitely no exception. I want to introduce Maddie Nebank to our podcast and I'm going to just give you a little thing about her.

Speaker 5:

But hi, maddie first of all, hi, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Hi we are so happy to have you.

Speaker 3:

So a little bio. Maddie Nebank graduated from Georgetown University in Washington DC in 2017.

Speaker 3:

A few days after later, right after graduating- she went to the hospital for a planned surgery to treat and this is where my like our say it for me, an AVM which is a Arto Arteo Arteovenous Maleformation Yep, okay, we'll talk about that in a few minutes and basically an untreated AVM for sure can result in a serious stroke, a pre-surgery procedure. Though that AVM gave way and Maddie did, in fact, suffer to stroke, and while going through recovery, maddie wrote books. One of them was called Fashion Forward how Today's Culture Shapes Tomorrow's Fashion. But Maddie took that endeavor level as she embraced her disability and she wrote her most recent book, which is Fast Forward, the Fully Recovered Mindset. There's so many things we can say about you. You are doing everything from a fashion person with their own fashion business to working at a major fashion brand, to having I don't know. You have a lot of followers on Instagram and a whole community of people you help through your own podcast. Welcome to the show, maddie. Welcome. Welcome to the show, maddie.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, thank you again for having me and thank you for the introduction.

Speaker 1:

We usually like to provide a little bit of a background on you know, when we feel whether you were born with a disability or if it's something you acquired later in life, there's always lessons to be learned through that journey. Could you give us a little bit of an overview of what that journey from being a you know, a college graduate to entering the disability community, and maybe what were some of those dark moments and how did you find your way through those?

Speaker 5:

Sure, yes, like you mentioned, estella, I was not born into the disability community. It happened later in life, I guess you could say the journey technically started when I was in second grade. I started getting extremely severe, debilitating migraines that would last for a super long time. I tried every single migraine medication under the sun. None of them worked. The only thing I could do is just like lay down in a dark room and like vomit repetitively, or like just hope that the pain would eventually go away.

Speaker 5:

When I was 15, I suffered a migraine that lasted 24 days and my neurologist was like this is not normal, we need to get this checked out. So he ordered me an MRI and that MRI is what revealed that I had the arteriovenous malformation, or the AVM, which Lainey mentioned at the beginning. Once I found out that I had an AVM, which is something that you're born with it's a tangle of blood vessels in your brain that don't have capillaries. So my understanding is that, like an abnormal tangle of blood vessels where the blood flow is just extremely unregulated and not good, that with each year of life was an increased chance of this AVM bleeding, and if it did bleed, there's a 10% chance of death. So I didn't like the idea of having a ticking time bomb in my brain, so that is what prompted me ultimately down the line to get a scheduled brain surgery after I graduated college. When I went in, though, I had to have a preoperative procedure, since my AVM was so big that preoperative caused a blood clot in my brain which burst, causing me to have a massive stroke in the hospital. Thankfully, I was in the hospital, although my neurosurgeon had just left for the night. He's called back in before he goes into, excuse me to do my emergency surgery. He tells my parents that the situation looks grim and he doesn't know if I'm going to make it up, but he'll try. But like he doesn't know, like it just did not look good, I was losing. I lost seven liters of blood, which is more blood than the human body can even contain, so I had the brain surgery.

Speaker 5:

Obviously, I did live through it, so I did come out alive that he was able to stop the bleeding and remove the AVM, but when I did wake up, I was completely paralyzed on the left side.

Speaker 5:

So everything from like my arm and hand, and it's on my left side and I'm left-handed, so that was like so an adjustment left arm, left hand, left leg, the whole left side of my body, so, like left side of my face I couldn't speak or swallow, like I couldn't even sit up in a wheelchair on my own, so I had to learn how to do everything from scratch, and it was like a very, very long journey To get to where I am today.

Speaker 5:

But I've always kind of been the type of person who, like I, very quickly learned that I wasn't just going to wake up and get better. You know, like I wasn't just gonna wake up one day and all of a sudden, like my arm would be back my leg. I Very quickly came to understand that, like, if I wanted to see progress, the only way that was going to happen is if I myself put in the work and I, like did the exercises in rehab and if I, you know, kept trying and no one would know for sure, like how much better I was going to get. But the only way to find out was for me to do the exercise.

Speaker 3:

I'm assuming, maddie, that you like I mean here, you are right Graduated from college and I can totally see, having had a kid just graduate from college last year myself, that you were fitting in a surgery before you began your beginning of your life, your first job. You're like starting your life like my child moved away the state and it's so exciting and you were just fitting in the surgery that you knew exactly. You had no idea that, like your whole life would change forever To that moment. So I can't imagine that, even with your amazingly positive attitude now, that you were so positive Immediately, right, like take us through rehab was like a little bit, and how you came to that Realization of mindset over everything yeah.

Speaker 5:

So I definitely did go through like an initial stage of Anger and like depression, I guess you could say, because initially, the first thoughts that would cross my mind after waking up from having this traumatic incident was why me, like, what did I do to deserve something like this to happen to me? Like I was, like you said, just graduated from college. I had a job lined up, I was just trying to squeeze in this surgery and then I was going to move up to Boston and like start off my career and you know, do all the things that in my mind, like a post grad Person, would be doing. Needless to say, like that path that I had envisioned for myself did not end up happening. But I was very upset and I definitely felt like a sense of FOMO, I guess you could say of like, basically for the first, like two years after having this stroke, it was just me like full-time rehab, like day in, day out, like I wasn't working. I was doing cognitive, speech, physical, occupational therapy, um, everything, and like it sucked. Like I really Did not like it, especially the cognitive and the speech therapy. Like to me it just felt kind of dumb. I'm like why do I have to do exercises, to learn how to like plan my day or like hold a conversation for longer than five minutes, like all of these things just seemed like kind of stupid to me. But I mean, in retrospect, obviously it was not because I couldn't do any of those things, so I had to relearn and rebuild. So I was like very Frustrated, I guess you could say, for a long time, but when I was in the inpatient therapy I did More. So come to realize, like, especially since I was working or, you know, just interacting with other patients who maybe they didn't have a stroke, but you know something happened that caused them to be in a inpatient rehab facility too Um, I realized that like I'm Very lucky.

Speaker 5:

I'm so lucky that one that I lived through such a Like a literal near-death experience, like the doctor didn't think I was going to come out of it alive and let alone like ever be able to work again or walk or, you know, do like all the things that I just previously taken for granted. You know I'm I'm like kind of stubborn, I guess you could say, and I'm very like when I get something into my mind, like I'm just gonna focus really hard on that and find a way to do it, even if it doesn't look Like how it would have previously. And I really really wanted my first goal like to be able to walk without a cane. Once I started walking with a cane I was like I I hate this thing, like I'm going to do whatever I can to get rid of this cane because I hate it so much. Um, so that became like the first goal and like I just Went after that like fully, and then after that it was like okay, now I need to be able to walk Without the cane and then I need to be able to like improve the quality of my gait. And then it's like now I want to be able to use my arm a little bit more and I want to Do you know, like do more cognitively stimulating activities so that I can be able to work Full-time. Because that was another huge goal of mine.

Speaker 5:

The biggest goals I had, like pretty much from the get-go, was obviously Ambulating independently, so like being able to walk on my own, live on my own and do all of those things. I wanted to be able to travel again. Being able to travel was huge for me because I love, I love to travel and see new places. So I really wanted to be able to do that live on my own. I wanted to be able to work again, um, and yeah, just do the different things of my life that I had been able to do before. What was that?

Speaker 1:

moment when, maybe, you did re-enter the workforce. What was that first job that you were able to get to that goal? Were there any fears around whether or not you were going to be able to you know perform at your best? Did you speak to your uh employer about your disability, or is it something that you you felt like you had to hide at that time?

Speaker 5:

Yeah, so definitely, and like re-entering the workforce or entering, I guess, because I'd never had a full-time job before Entering the workforce for the first time was a huge goal of mine and it was quite challenging. I did not move forward with the job that I had been hired for, like back when I was a college student, um, just because it involved to move up to Boston and I wasn't ready for like independent living at that time. So I ended up getting a job as a reinsurance underwriter through, um a family friend who was hiring, um, he has like or works at a like a Spanish insurance company and I speak Spanish and I thought like oh, like this would be great Opportunity for me to like I can stay local, I can still live with my parents and like go to work. And you know, we'll just like see what happens and I'm I'm big into like trying things before I think I'm ready and like I didn't know if I was ready To start working a full-time job. But I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna do it because I'll never like there's never going to be the perfect time, at least for me, like that I thought I'm never, there's never going to be like a perfect moment where I'm like oh, yes, okay, like I'm ready, or like I find the perfect job, like I just wanted to try out a full-time work setting and like see if I could do it, if I could handle it.

Speaker 5:

And it was tough at the beginning and I did tell, because it was a family friend, like obviously he knew about like my disability and what happened and everything, and was very accommodating, like in the beginning I couldn't work super late, like I was. You know, it would be like 4 pm and I'm like okay, like I'm done for the day, like I need to Go home now, but over time I was able to build up like that level of endurance, I guess you could say, and work longer hours. And you know that first experience of my first job, it was huge for me. I I can't drive because of the stroke, because I lost a lot of vision, so I I can't drive. But I learned how to take the train by myself when I had that first job. So I would like walk to the train station, hop on the train, go a stop and then like take a shuttle to the office.

Speaker 3:

And that was huge for me in establishing my independence so part of your story that was so motivating to me was I. You were talking, I think, on a podcast that I was listening to, about you know, the fact that this new disability that you acquired Changed your whole mind. Like you use it as an opportunity, and people say that often like, oh, every challenge can be an opportunity, and it seems kind of cliche when it said, like what do you mean? Like, really, you know what's the opportunity, but you were like, hmm, this, what I studied, you know, in school, wasn't what I really want to do. And so talk about what you. How do you use your new challenges to get the opportunity you have now? How you know what is you're doing.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, so I definitely yes. So my favorite saying is obstacles are opportunities. So really truly trying to embrace that and finding a way to turn the obstacles that are in my life into an opportunity and that was One of those obstacles, obviously was like having the stroke and the opportunity to start working this full-time job. But I would say before that you mentioned about my books. My first book I actually wrote before I even started working and that was because I was feeling how do I say this? I was feeling a bit left out Because every working everyone's moved to the city, started new jobs and like living Glamorous life, like in my mind, and I'm just like doing rehab every day, and it sucked and it was not fun.

Speaker 5:

So I had a conversation with one of my very favorite Georgetown professors from when I was a student and I was telling him about what happened and how like I wanted to do something productive with my life, but I really didn't like Therapy day in and day out, even though obviously that was important. Like I wanted to do something like more Important to me as well, and he encouraged me to take the time that I'm not working a full-time job to explore something that I'm really interested in and like see no, start having conversations with people about a topic that I'm interested in and just building my network and an industry that I'm passionate about and see where that leaves. I had settled upon fashion because I'd always really like fashion and wanted to be in it, but I had no work experience in the industry and I thought who would ever hire me without like having industry experience? So I started just like casually networking and like talking to people through friends, so like everyone from like small business owners to models to editors, all like whoever in the industry and just like talking to them and hearing their stories. And I ended up writing all of my like key takeaways from those conversations into my first book, fashion forward, which you mentioned.

Speaker 5:

But the biggest part about writing that book for me was it was great because it got my foot in the door like into an industry that I wanted to be in, and I mean so I loved my job and as a re-insurance underwriter I really, really did. But I kept coming back to like oh, what, if, like, what, if I? You know, I've always kind of thought like maybe I wanted to be in fashion and like maybe I needed to take the lead. But the most interesting part about me writing that first book was I wrote a bit about like my recovery in it as well, so like it had the stories about people in the fashion industry. But I also wove in little anecdotes about like my stroke recovery and how me going through the process of interviewing and writing this book and planning it out Like all of that contributed to my cognitive recovery and people really resonated with that. People liked that aspect of it and were like interested to learn more.

Speaker 3:

I'm super interested in this because I'm thinking, okay, people who are listening, they're like I don't know what I want to do, right, like I want to do something, but like I don't know for a second. Here you took you know, your. I mean, there's two parts to it. One, you know, your interest was in fashion, did you? When you started to interview these people, did you do it like, like what did you say to them I'm writing a book? Because you didn't know you wanted to write a book at that time, right? Or did you know?

Speaker 5:

I mean I had an idea that it would be going into a book. So I just, I mean I reached out like to friends and family members and asked like, oh, do you know anyone? Or I sent out cold emails, like I was really just trying to get in touch with whoever I could. And then just I came up with a couple of a couple of questions to ask and, you know, basically just get their experience and write a bit about, like, um, their experience in the industry. And then, after I'd talked to a bunch of people, I looked at all these conversations to think like, okay, what are the key takeaways? Like what are the common themes that I'm seeing amongst all these conversations? And that was how I kind of figured out how to segment my book. Like I didn't go into it saying like, okay, these are going to be like the five pillars that I discuss. Like I just started talking to people and I figured the rest out after.

Speaker 1:

We'll be right back.

Speaker 6:

This is George, fred and Jason, the co-leaders of speak, interrupting to say that we hope you're enjoying this episode, so please make sure to check out our new show, the speak podcast, another great show produced by launchpad 516 studios. New episodes available every week on all of your favorite podcast platforms.

Speaker 4:

Each speak talk is about six to 10 minutes in length, and the talks are given in storytelling format. There are three key moments in each speak talk the moment of truth, the moment of transformation and the moment of impact. We host pop up events all over the world, and now we're bringing our talks to your device.

Speaker 6:

Join us on the speak podcast as our speakers step onto the stage and into the spotlight with impactful ideas and stories. We'll let you get back to the show.

Speaker 1:

You were listening to another great podcast from launchpad 516 studios and what. We obviously want people to read the books and we're going to put the links in our show notes, but maybe you could share one or two of what those key pillars were from the book. What did you learn about yourself as far as how you wanted to be part of the fashion industry?

Speaker 5:

So, to be honest, when you ask that question, what I think of is more like my second book, because that one I feel like has bigger takeaways. Like my first book is more like takeaways around, like how the fashion industry is changing and like that's interesting To me. The more, the more interesting and relevant one is probably my second books. Is it okay if I talk about that?

Speaker 5:

Yes, it's a perfect segue, so that one.

Speaker 5:

My second book is about, like my stroke recovery and the lessons that I learned for the first, like few years, specifically around mindset, and I think that I mean it's called fast forward, the fully recovered mindset, because to me, what I learned through my own recovery is that our recovery from stroke, from whatever, begins with our mindset.

Speaker 5:

If I didn't have a right mindset, a positive, an optimistic mindset, then I wasn't, I wasn't going to recover really at all. Like it began with how I talk to myself, the stories I tell myself about, like how I want to be and what I want to do and the impact I want to have. So for me, mindset is everything and me being able to turn my mindset around, to think positively and view my obstacles as opportunities was really the game changer for me and it inspired me to create like a community through social media to share my story, not just to share it but to help, to help myself and to help other people and empower others to do the same and show like what is possible, like, yes, we may have traumatic, terrible things happen to us, like a stroke, but we I mean we can't change that that happened, but what we can change is our mindset and how we think about what we're going to do and how we're going to use our energies moving forward. So to me that's been like, that's been very important.

Speaker 3:

So you know we've talked on this podcast and actually I wrote a whole blog about thought distortions and how important it is to you know that you can change your thinking. Right, it's all about your own thinking that, that that basically drives you. So you have the ability to change your thoughts, which then can change how you feel, et cetera. So obviously it's one thing to just say you know what your mindset is, everything You've had bad days.

Speaker 3:

I'm sure you've talked on your socials about your vision, especially you know, the, the weakness, the, the hand weakness, and but the peripheral vision loss is huge, right, it affects your balance, it affects everything you, you already wear AFO after this. You know, I'm sure you have days, like everybody does, that just suck, right, right. Take us through a day that just sucks. You wake up, everything's going wrong, like it happens in life. How does mindset take it Like? How do you shift your mindset? Are there any takeaways you can give to our listeners?

Speaker 5:

I'm going to do that, yeah, so one of one of my biggest things that I'll do, because I do have a lot of moments like that, to be honest, and I find that the more I slow down and just like take a breather, it sounds like kind of dumb, but like take a moment for myself, maybe it's like a few minute meditation, like I love to meditate, I feel like that has helped me a lot in my recovery and specifically around like improving my mindset, because I kind of think like like fake it till you make it in a sense, like I didn't believe that I was, you know, a positive person, like I was very distraught and yeah, distraught, I guess, is the word like when this happened, but I started just like telling myself like no, no, you can do this, like you're strong, all these things, even though I didn't believe it.

Speaker 5:

And you know, over time, like I started to believe it and I'm like I am, I am strong, I can handle. Like, if I can handle that, I can handle having a stroke, I can handle any challenge. It's all just like. It puts things into perspective for me. But, to answer your question, like meditation I find helps just slowing down. I'm big on taking walks. So I go for walks as often as I can, and I find that those always help to like lift my mood.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I love seeing you know just your projection from being someone who had to we learn all of these life skills to being such a powerful spokesperson on behalf of stroke survivors and the disability community and I even came across a recent post regarding presenting at the World Health Organization and some of the other exciting events that you've been part of. Can you, you know, fast forward a little bit to how, maybe, that those books have impacted your career and how you kind of went from advocating for yourself to advocating for others?

Speaker 5:

Yeah, no, I mean. So it was basically when I decided I was going to write the second book about my stroke recovery. I started connecting with others through social media to kind of like blean the lessons that, like other people have learned, were maybe going through a similar thing with stroke recovery and me sharing my journey on social media, in my books, on my blogs, in podcasts, like whatever. I've been able to connect with so many different people in the disability community, hear their stories and there's so many things that, like, we have in common from that and I learned that community and support is really everything. And because I was sharing my journey, like I've had so many cool opportunities or like people and organizations reach out to me.

Speaker 5:

Like you mentioned the World Health Organization, I was invited to speak at their Global Rehab Conference last month in Geneva, switzerland, which was really cool and a great, insane opportunity to meet like different organizations and countries around the world all committed to furthering, like, the global rehab agenda. So, like things like that are cool. Also great opportunities to continue advocacy, because that is just so important and I'm very passionate about community building and so I do a lot of like community work, like outside of my social media, building my own community platform, and I'm looking now to launch a series of like live community events to connect the disability community in person. So, like I, there's always like a million things going on, and that's one of the big ones, right now and you have a job like tell us what you do and ooh where you work and if you get a discount and what that discount is.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh. Okay, you can tell me later about the discount. Tell us everybody where you work.

Speaker 5:

Yes, so I work for Hermes. So I do actually work in fashion, now in luxury. I made the switch after about like two years of working in reinsurance, which, as I mentioned before, I loved working in reinsurance. But in the back of my mind I kind of kept thinking like, oh, what if, like I missed the opportunity to, you know, take the leap and like see if maybe I could work in this industry, especially after I wrote the book. So I made the switch about. I've been working there two years ago now and I've been having a great time, I love it there. I actually started an employee resource group at work for disability inclusion, so like that's also kind of like a passion of mine, too is working on, working on all those like checklists and projects that we have going on. But I love, I love where I work. It's been great.

Speaker 3:

So Maddie, and you know, maddie, we do a lot of workshops for companies like Hermes and I know all in clip and adaptive fashion and all of it. So little plug for us, small plug Because Hermes people who are listening may not care about Hermes, but it's like a big deal. So very cool. It's a really cool company, awesome job and all of the amazing work. You're like doing a travel thing with.

Speaker 5:

Yes, tell us about that.

Speaker 5:

So I mentioned that like one of my biggest goals was to be able to travel again independently, and that was very, very important to me. I love to travel and I actually met through Instagram another young woman in the disability community. She is an ambulance wheelchair user and she lives in the Netherlands. Her name is Chloe and actually pretty much a year ago to the day, we finally met in person in Madrid when I was traveling in the Netherlands, and we really hit it off and we decided to just take a road trip together. So we took a road trip up to the north of Spain and, like, hit a bunch of places and just started documenting our experience of traveling with disabilities Her with a wheelchair, me with my vision and my let my brace and you know arm and everything. So we just decided to make a thing out of it.

Speaker 5:

So now we're disability travel diaries and we're just going to be able to travel together and we actually earlier this summer, like at the very beginning of the summer, we took a long. We took a train trip from London to Paris, to a small village in France, to Luxembourg, to Belgium, and we like documented that, which is really cool. So we love like collaborative experiences where we're able to travel and just document what it's like to travel with a disability, to show the disability community Like yes, it is possible. And like here's how we address accessibility concerns when we're on the road, when we're traveling, because we think it's really important to showcase that for different levels of disability, to assess properties or locations. For she's an ambulance wheelchair user, I'm like a mobile I don't even know what you call it Like I have a brace, so we can assess it on that level. Like because the space might be accessible for someone who wears a brace or is ambulance wheelchair, but maybe not for an electric wheelchair user.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 5:

Different levels of accessibility which we look for when we're traveling.

Speaker 1:

And what are some of those tips? I see you share a few tips on your social for traveling. What would a few of those be? Or what do you feel people resonate with the most when you're sharing some of these travel tips?

Speaker 5:

So I think one of the things that I've learned and I learned this from doing the opposite is Like start planning really early, like it's, and that's probably because, like the past few trips I've gone on have been like rather last minute, but then that just creates so much unnecessary stress, and I'm like I could have easily avoided this had I just like thought ahead and been like okay, I want to go to this place in like six months or however long, instead of like Scrambling to plan everything like a month before and then you don't know if, like which location is gonna be accessible, or you know all of that. So I think Forward thinking and planning is definitely critical, and I'm trying to actually execute on that myself more, but I would say that that's probably the biggest thing.

Speaker 3:

Maddie, you do so many things. I mean it would be impossible, like I don't know, if you guys click on people's bios and on Instagram but Maddie has, I don't know, there might be like 50 links. There's like Business. You have Maddie's closet where you're like doing kind of like a what is that called that? That Whatever? There was a company that lots of companies that send you, you know, clothing. You pay a flat and then what you keep, what you like and no, I forgot what name of it is. But there's Maddie closet that does that. You can find out about that on your Instagram and your website. You are doing the this podcast. What's your podcast called?

Speaker 5:

Maddie. Oh, I have a podcast with another stroke survivor and it's surviving and thriving and we go live like pretty much once a week and we'll like interview other people in the disability community or just like casually chat ourselves.

Speaker 3:

And we're gonna put all those links, but how can people find you?

Speaker 5:

Probably the best ways. I'm very active, like through my Instagram page, so I would say, connect with me there, maddie. Stroke of luck, join my community page because, like I mentioned, I'm planning a live series of meetups and Would obviously love to have everyone involved. I host monthly community calls with people all over the world, like virtual calls. We just had our first one of September, yesterday. Actually, people could sign up for my community page. We can interact and chat there. Instagram send me an email.

Speaker 1:

Well, we will include everything in the show notes, and when we remember, we like to ask our guests what embrace it means to them, so I'm gonna throw that out out to you as a closing statement.

Speaker 5:

Taking whatever. I mean, we were just talking about obstacles, so I'll say taking whatever obstacle or, you know, challenge or just event that happens, whatever is going on in your life, taking it and Turning it into something that is good and positive for yourself, maybe even for other people. So it kind of goes along to me with my saying of obstacles or opportunities, embrace it, turn it into something good.

Speaker 3:

Well, lemons to lemonade and you. That is for sure. Okay, we have every cliche covered, but Authentic like I, I believe that your mindset you know that you have managed to Change your mindset and look at all that you're doing. So clearly you had to right. So those of you guys who are listening, follow Maddie for some inspiration tips if you're having that bad day. Maddie has them too. But maybe you know, you can learn from from her and From the rest of the distance disability community about how they pick themselves back up, because it's really not linear, right?

Speaker 3:

whatever way you became disabled or got acquired a disability, it's not linear progress. Sometimes you have bad days, but you get back up. So thank you so much for being here with us. You're a wise young woman and super cool and, like I said, I'd like to know your discount. But We'll connect offline about that a little more, but thank you everyone for listening. Thanks, everyone.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, thank you, stella, thanks Maddie. Hey, embracers, thank you so much for listening and supporting the Embrace it podcast brought to you by Launchpad 516 studios Executive, produced by George Andriopoulos and hosted by Laini Ishpia and Stella Wego. Our music and sound effects are licensed through Epidemic Sound, and Bracet is hosted with Buzzsprout. Do you have a disability?

Speaker 3:

related topic you'd love for us to feature, or Could someone you know be a fabulous guest on our show? We would love to hear your comments and feature them on our next podcast. So leave us a voicemail, or you can even send us a text to 631 517 0066.

Speaker 1:

Make sure to subscribe to this feed wherever podcasts are available and leave us a five-star review on Apple podcasts while you're at it. Follow us at embrace it underscore podcast on Instagram and make sure to follow all the great podcasts produced by Launchpad 516 studios we hope you join us next time and continue to embrace it.