“ We might think life would be easier without the challenges, but I’ ve learned it’ s the challenges that make us find out what we’ re made of.”

“ IN SO MANY WAYS, this was where it all began for me,” Amy Purdy told Conference attendees in Colorado Springs.“ In 1998, I was a massage therapist and one of my goals was always to go to an ISPA Conference.”

Purdy’ s keynote address during the Power Session on the ISPA Conference’ s opening morning was nothing short of inspirational. She took the stage with a heartfelt reflection after receiving the 2025 ISPA Alex Szekely Humanitarian Award:“ You never know when your detours will lead you to exactly where you want to be.”

Purdy shared her journey of resilience and reinvention with members of the international spa community. She recounted how, at 19, she fell ill with meningococcal meningitis, a battle that initially left her with a twopercent chance of survival and ultimately cost her both legs.“ I was absolutely physically and emotionally broken,” she shared. Faced with this reality, she asked herself,“ If my life was a book and I was the author of that book, how would I want my story to go?”

Her answer led her to defy expectations. Just four months after losing her legs, she was back on a snowboard. Despite initial failures, she persevered, writing to prosthetic companies and even crafting her own adaptive feet— complete with painted toenails, and now housed in the Smithsonian. She continued her journey by cofounding Adaptive Action Sports and advocating for the

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