Amy Downs - Hope is a Verb

Amy Downs - Hope is a Verb

Join us on Peaceful Life Radio as we delve into the extraordinary story of Amy Downs, a survivor of the Oklahoma City bombing. In this episode, Amy shares her transformation from a 355-pound couch potato to an Ironman triathlete, from a flunkout to earning an MBA, and from a bank teller to the CEO of the very credit union devastated by the bombing. Listen as Amy discusses the principle of intentional living, the power of breaking down goals into little steps, and the concept of 'hope as a verb.' Amy's resilience and determination are sure to inspire as she recounts her journey of self-improvement and empowerment. Don't miss this compelling episode!

00:00 Introduction to Amy Downs
01:26 Surviving the Oklahoma City Bombing
05:40 Embracing a Second Chance at Life
09:08 Transforming Through Small Steps
10:33 Physical and Professional Transformations
15:34 Writing 'Hope is a Verb'
18:21 Living Intentionally in the Second Half of Life
21:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Amy Downs: 0:29

Hope is the belief that your future can be better and brighter than your past, and that you actually play a role in making that happen.

David Lowry: 0:38

That was Amy Downs, our guest today on Peaceful Life Radio. She was one of the last survivors to be pulled from the rubble following the Oklahoma City bombing. You're listening to Peaceful Life Radio. I'm David Lowry, and my buddy Don Drew's with us today, Don.

Don Drew: 0:53

Hello, David.

David Lowry: 0:54

Hey, why don't you introduce our guest and get us started?

Don Drew: 0:58

Absolutely. Amy and I have known each other, I think for about 25 years now. She's an old friend. As way of introducing her, I just wanna mention that in 1995, she, as you said, David was one of the last survivors pulled from the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing, and 168 people were killed there including 18 of her, 33 coworkers at the Federal employees Credit Union. Embracing her second chance at life, amy launched a campaign of self-improvement and empowerment. She went from a 355 pound couch potato to completing a full Ironman triathlon. From flunking out of math class to earning her master's degree in business administration. From a teller to CEO of the same credit union nearly destroyed in the bombing. Amy is now a full-time speaker and author of the book, Hope is a Verb, which is available on Amazon. Most recently, Amy was featured in two documentaries produced by National Geographic and Netflix. Amy, welcome to Peaceful Life Radio.

Amy Downs: 1:54

I'm glad to be here. What an honor.

Don Drew: 1:56

Amy, I know you're asked a lot about what happened to you and so many of your friends on April 19th, 1995. Everything changed for you on that day, didn't it?

Amy Downs: 2:04

Yes, it did.

Don Drew: 2:05

Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?

Amy Downs: 2:07

Sure, absolutely. I was 28 years old and working at a little financial institution, a credit union in the Murra Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. And I might add, by the way, that. I know you're an educator. I know that you value education, Dawn. I did not at that time in my life, and I had flunked outta math class. The remedial math class in college, not even the one you get credit hours for. So I was struggling a little bit in trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up and college didn't seem to be an option. So I ended up with my amazing math skills, applying for a job at this little financial institution to work as a teller. I had been there for about seven years, and on the morning of April 19th, I was running around that morning, super excited because I was getting ready to buy my first house and I was talking to everybody about the house chitchatting. I remember looking at my watch and thinking, oh my gosh, it's almost nine o'clock and I had not done any work. I better get to work or I'm gonna get in trouble, and I run down the hall to, to sit down at my desk and. One of my coworkers, who was seven months pregnant, was sitting right beside me waiting to ask me a question, and when I turned to ask her what she needed, I'm not sure if the words ever made it outta my mouth or not. That's when the bomb went off. And I remember just hearing this incredible roaring noise in my head that was so loud that my first thought was I had been shot in the head. That was the only thing I. Could possibly cause that. When you work for a financial institution, you're always a little bit worried about robbery, so that's why I think I immediately thought, maybe a robbery had gone wrong and I could hear people screaming. And then I also was feeling this falling sensation like I was falling. I found out later that I was falling. I fell three floors. I was still in my desk chair, upside down, buried under about 10 feet of rubble. So shortly after, I hear this roaring and all this screaming and this falling feeling. All of a sudden everything goes completely quiet and I can't move and I cannot see. It's very hard to breathe and extremely hot, and I have no idea what has happened. No clue. And I thought for a second I thought, am I dead? Did something happen and I'm not, and I'm dead. Then I could hear a siren going off in the distance. And I decided, okay I'm, I must still be alive. I can hear this siren. But it was about 45 minutes before I heard men's voices. And when I heard them, of course I started screaming and they found their way to me. But you know, I'm completely buried other than my right hand is sticking out the side of the rubble pile. And when they get to me, they get to my hand. I think they're getting ready to pull me out. But it was at that time that everyone started yelling, there's another bomb. There's another bomb. We need everybody out now. And so my rescuers had to leave me, and it was during this time that I experienced what a lot of people describe as life flashing before your eyes. And I had a lot of regrets for. Not having lived my life, like just feeling like I had squandered my life and I just begged God for a second chance. Anything, just a second chance. I just to, if I could just make it out and, this whole, that whole experience was about 45 minutes as well waiting, for this bomb to go off. It never did, and they came back and they continued working to get me out. It took them about six and a half hours to get me out alive that day.

David Lowry: 5:50

Wow, what a story! I've heard about the Murah bombing for all these years now, and we celebrated in Oklahoma City with a marathon and a memorial museum to remember all of the people who unfortunately died that day and all of our brave heroes as well. But it had a profound impact on your life. You made some changes in your life and, I guess we might say you learn to live more intentionally, and I'd like for you to tell us how you define this term intentional living.

Amy Downs: 6:21

Well, the life flashing before my eyes, the realizing that I was getting ready to die and I had really not even lived has stayed with me. It just it, it made a lasting imprint. And I remember when they put me on the gurney and they took me outta the back of the federal building that day, taking those first breaths of fresh air and promising God, I'll never live my life the same. Now I'd like to tell you, you know, cue the rocky music, I went running out of the hospital down the steps and I changed my life. It didn't exactly work that way. But the thought. The knowing in my heart that I wanted to change was there, and I didn't quite know how, but I knew that I wanted to do things different. Well, the little credit union that I worked for lost 18 of the 33 employees and all, almost all management, all supervisors were gone. So with a handful of traumatized employees, we were trying to reopen and having to reinvent ourselves and. It actually turned out to be a really good diversion, I think for me, because I focused actually on that at first helping rebuild this credit union. That's what I put my energy toward. Now through that, okay, I learned how to set goals. I learned how to break really big things down into very small steps, and that was huge because as I kept learning in business how to accomplish things. And there was this little framework that emerged, which was started. My boss asked me one day, if you had a magic wand, what would you do? And then she, and then backing into that, basically given your current situation, your current limitations, what are the smallest steps that you can take to work toward that? And just repeating that same process over and over again. One day I thought, you know, I wonder if this would work in my personal life. It felt like I was a rock star at work, but my personal life was in a mess, is in, was in a mess, and so I thought, I wanna go back to college. That really bothered me that I had flunked outta college, that I had squandered that opportunity. And so I wrote on a little note card. I wrote, I wanna go back to school. And my very first step,'cause I would always make my first step so small that they weren't overwhelming and I would not procrastinate'em. So my first step was literally just to find the phone number to LSUS so I could get my transcript. And then once I got my transcript, then it was. Research and find a college that would be willing to accept my, okay. Dawn, close your ears. A 0.5, zero grade point average, like nothing in front of the decimal. So I had to find a college that would be willing to take it and literally, just take the, I was like, my goal was to take basket weaving till I could get my grade point average up high enough to go to a little bit more reputable college and so forth. Well, anyway, fast forward, I ended up graduating with my degree and then kept going and got my master's in business. So that was the first thing, the first really big, big, big transformation in my life was going back to school, getting that degree. When I say big transformation, I mean that took time. Like something that took time. There were some things I changed in my life immediately like prayer like knowing I needed God in my life. There were things that changed immediately, but some of the other things in my life took a lot of time, like the going back to school and that took several years.

David Lowry: 9:38

I wanna hear more about breaking things down into little steps. That sounds like something all of us could use no matter what stage of life we're in.

Amy Downs: 9:46

Oh, absolutely. And, and I love learning from other people too. So, there's books like Tiny Habits and lots of people who have written about this. And I listen to all of them and then figure out which pieces seem to work for me. And so for me, what I do is I first ask myself the question, if I had a magic wand. What would I want? And I really dig into what does that look like and the why. What and why what am I really wanting? And then I say, okay, given my current situation I'll take my weight. For example, I was 355 pounds, given my current situation, my current limitations. I love me some food. Okay. I love to eat. And I've joined Weight Watchers, 50 million times and I'm not losing weight. So given my current situation, my current limitations, what can I do, what are the smallest steps? And that first step was to literally just Google, just research what weight loss options are out there, like what's actually out there, I don't know. And so starting that small and then just building the next step. Consistency really is the key. Over time, taking small steps really does lead to big transformation, and so every single goal I set starts with something really ridiculously small.

Don Drew: 11:03

Let me ask you about your physical transformation as it continued. I know you're a cyclist. You and your friends and your husband have cycled all over well all over. And ultimately you ended up competing in an Ironman contest and succeeded at it. Can you tell us about that adventure?

Amy Downs: 11:20

Absolutely. So I ended up having a weight loss surgery, so that's my path. Ended up taking me to weight loss surgery. But the doctor basically told me it's not gonna stick or last unless you change your life, you have to do something. So, my next goal was to find a bicycle. With a big enough seat and big enough tires that would hold me and to start riding a bike. So the first bike ride was five minutes. I mean that small, and then I kept building on it. My sister liked to ride a bike. And so we started going longer distances and I found out about a ride across Oklahoma that was happening every year. And we did that. And then I was working the finish line, you were talking about the marathon at the beginning of the show. The marathon that honors the lives of the 168 people that were killed. I was passing out medals at the finish line, and that is a dangerous place to be, the finish line of a marathon because it tricks you, you're watching all these people. With disabilities older than you, like other limitations and they're crossing the finish line. So it tricks you into thinking you can do it too. So I tell everybody I'm gonna run next year and honor my friend Sonya that was killed. And then I discover I can't run more than 10 seconds without it sounding like you need to call 9 1 1. But anyway one mile at a time, right? One, one step at a time. And I do this marathon. Then somebody tells me, you know, if you learn how to swim, you could do this thing called a trilon. So I hire a swim coach'cause I don't know how to swim. I can only dog paddle and I learn how to swim. And I start doing these little mini triathlons, at a gym where you just get on a spin bike and you swim in their pool and and then I kept doing longer distance ones. And then when I turned 50 I said, okay, I gotta do something serious. I'm 50. And so I had heard about Iron Man, it's a 2.4 mile swim. Followed by 112 mile bike ride and ending with a 26.2 marathon. It all has to be done in time cuts, and the whole thing has to be finished within 17 hours to be declared an Iron Man. So I decided to do it. I went to Tempe, Arizona. We did not have an Iron Man at that time in Oklahoma, so I went to Arizona and I'm doing this Iron Man. I get to the run portion of the Iron Man. I just, after three miles my body starts shutting down. I'm cramping, I'm walking like it's not good. And I look at my watch and I'm thinking, I. My coach tells me she comes, she's volunteering at the event. She comes and finds me and she says, Amy, you're doing really good. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I can't finish. And she said, remember, it was a self seated swim start, which means we didn't all line up. 1, 2, 3 on your mark. You gets that go like. You got in according to how long it took you to swim. So I probably got in the water at seven 15, which then meant I had till 15 minutes after midnight and I had not accounted for that. So the minute she told me that, I was like, oh, and I'm trying to do the math and I'm realizing I can finish. And it's true. If you think you can or you can't, they're both true, whichever one you think. And so all a sudden I start picking up my pace and I'm thinking I can do this. And I'm almost to the finish line. I'm almost there and I can see the lights of the stadium and the golf cart. A golf cart with some young guys come up beside me and they said, ma'am, do you still have your timing chip? And what that means is they're getting ready to take me off the course. And I said yes I do. And my coach was still there and she tells them, Hey, she's not the last one. There's people behind her and she starts trying to educate them, that we have more time. And they said well, I'm sorry, she's the last person. Now we've cleared the course. So, man, I pick up pace'cause I'm trying really hard to finish and I'm getting closer. They come up again and they said, ma'am, what's your number? And I said, 1798. And they pick up a megaphone and they yelled at Mike Riley, the voice of Iron Man through the megaphone. And they say our final finisher, Amy Downs is coming in. And I heard Mike re tell the crowd, let's let Amy hear you. Let's bring her home, make some noise. She's gonna do it. I hear this roar come up from the stadium and all of a sudden I'm in the shoot and I see the jumbotron and there I am and I'm just like oh my gosh. And all these people, are high fiving me over the railing. And I thought, well, I'm last, I'm gonna take a minute here and high five people, who cares, so I'm dancing to the music, high fiving, come across the finish line and Mike Ri says, Amy Downs, you are an Iron Man. And it was one of the moments in my life that is the most special.

Don Drew: 15:40

That's a physical transformation. But you've also had a professional transformation. My goodness, you started out as a teller at Federal Employees Credit Union. Later that would become Allegiance Credit Union, which is the name is known by today. And you made it pretty high up in the organization as I hear.

Amy Downs: 15:56

I did I worked in almost every department, a lot of different positions, and ended up becoming CEO from teller to CEO.

David Lowry: 16:04

Amy, I wanna know about your book, Hope is a Verb. There's gotta be a story about that title.

Amy Downs: 16:10

There is, there absolutely is. Well, first I gotta tell you I worked on this book for years and years, and I struggled with. I don't want this book to be all about me. Like it's about the audience, the person reading it. Like how can I help the, how can what I have been through help somebody else? And so I was on several different iterations and discussing it with my nephew who turns out I just knew he was an attorney. I. And I didn't know he also had a master's in creative writing. So when I discover that man, I start twisting his arm hard, like, he's gonna help me. He needs to help me. So he agrees to help me, and he and I write this book of his verb, but we don't know the name of it yet. We're working on it. We're trying to figure out the name. And he and I both read a book called Hope Rising and Hope Rising by Chan Hellman. And there's another author, and I'm blanking on the name right now, but in this book, hope Rising, they describe hope is the belief that your future can be better and brighter than your past, and that you actually play a role in making that happen. And oftentimes I think, I always thought of hope as like, I hope you have a good day. Almost like a wish, like it's you, hope you wish, and this described it differently. It's action. It's actually the action. You have agency over the action steps for a goal that you've set for yourself. And that's actually the thing that sparks this hope inside of you. And that really resonated. And so we reached out to the author of the book and said, Hey, we're really thinking about going with a hope title because you've inspired us. And we credit their book at the end of our book. But that's how the title came about with hope is a verb.

Don Drew: 17:47

You used the phrase in the book, the Power of Authentic Hope, I believe, and you talk about how it can transform somebody from a victim to a champion. But you write about others and you write about, authentic hope. Is that what you're talking about?

Amy Downs: 18:00

Yes. Yes. So I grew up in so I grew up in the na it claimant era. Okay. I grew up in the, in a in a, religious setting where sometimes I think, maybe it wasn't intentional, but you know, God became the genie in the bottle. If you wanted something, you're just gonna pray hard enough or believe hard enough it's gonna happen. And there I never saw action on. On the person's part. Often it was just, I'm gonna name it, claim it. I'm gonna believe God for it, but I don't do anything. So to me this idea that like, I am actually involved in this too, and that I own a piece. I, I mean, yes I believe that God, grants favor and there's blessings that happen to us absolutely. But this idea that me, that I am actually going to work towards something myself and bring that hope about just really resonated with me.

David Lowry: 18:51

Amy, our program focuses on the second half of life and it's no surprise to many people that a lot of people give up as they get older. Just like, what's the point? There's a lot of things happening to our bodies we're having to adjust to. There's all kinds of things that are normal and natural, but are a bit disquieting disturbing. I'd like to hear you talk to us in the second half of life about some things you've learned and how you intend to apply that in the second half of life.

Amy Downs: 19:20

Absolutely. So I'm 58 years old and I've been experiencing all the wonderful things that everybody warned me. What happened after you turned 50? And so now here's what this looks like for me. So when I'm setting goals and I'm thinking to myself, okay, I'll give you an example. So, I retired from the credit union this year and I have a full-time speaking career and I moved to a different town. So I'm try, I'm in this transition part of life, right? And I'm trying to figure out what does exercise look like for me. And I wanted to include like I, the things that are important to me are doing good in my community. Connection with other people and movement being out in nature, blah, blah. So I find something where I'm like, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go outside and we're gonna pick up trash. We're gonna go outside and pick up trash because I'm out in nature. I'm moving my body. I get my husband to go with me. So it's almost like a date. We're chatting, we're picking up trash, and that's how it started. It started with let's just go pick up some trash, like 20 minutes. We're gonna walk down the street, pick up trash, and then it extended. And then it was, you know what, we need a golf cart with a pickup bed so we can load all of our trash bags and our gear. And now it's a whole thing. Now we take our weed eater, our everything, and we're cleaning up the town. So, it's, it started with a little bitty small step, given my current situation. Limitations, I've had double knee replacement. I'm not riding my bike as much as I used to. I'm not, my body is, I'm not able to do physically some of the things I used to do, but I still wanna be active. So, okay, let's look at it differently. Now it's very rewarding. It's very different. Picking up trash is, maybe not doing an Iron Man, but I'm having the time of my life. So I think you just have to re-look at what does this look like for me now, given my current situation, limitations, what can I do now? I'm loving hiking, things that I maybe didn't have the time for because hikes took a long time. I've got the time for some of that, and it's, it's, I'm just having the time of my life. It's fun.

Don Drew: 21:26

That's been evident that you've had an active hope not just a wish, but an act of hope that you can be stronger physically, that you can advance your career, that you can actually learn, maybe even learn a little math. Amy, I wanna go back to the CEO part just for a minute here. You became the chief Executive Officer of the credit union where he had worked for, how many years was it?

Amy Downs: 21:47

I worked for the credit union 37 years, and the last seven and a half were as CEO.

Don Drew: 21:53

Wow. that's an incredible journey. It's incredible for anybody. Every once in a while you read about the private eventually becomes a general in the army or the Air Force, and that's a lot of work to have accomplished. You really took your mission to live intentionally, seriously.

Amy Downs: 22:09

Yes.

Don Drew: 22:10

Amy Downs, whose life could have been solely defined by being a survivor of the Murah bombing has found so much more from that. Her life has grown to include being a motivational speaker, an author, chief Executive Officer, and even an Ironman. Amy, it's been inspirational having you with us today on Peaceful Life Radio. We wanna thank you for being with us.