Falling Forward

So how did a biochemist accidentally become an American Ninja Warrior? Yes, that was me. Biochemist working from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM and my friend at the time was creating a submission video for something called American Ninja Warrior. And I had no idea what that show was, but the video offer was like, “Angela, I feel like you would be a great fit. Maybe you should make a video too.” But I didn’t want to step on my friend’s toes, so I was like, you know what? I’m not going to make a video.
But after some convincing, we quickly threw something together. So here’s a video that we threw together really quickly. So after we threw this video together, I honestly forgot about it. I didn’t think anything was going to come of it until all of a sudden I get a ring on my phone from an 818 number, and I really just thought it was spam. So I just let it go to voicemail and on the voicemail it said, “You’ve been accepted to American Ninja Warrior.” Literally like that. It’s exactly how they said it. And you need to compete in two weeks.
So now I needed to learn how to ninja, okay? I had two weeks to figure it out. So I go online and I post something that says, wanted something to help me ninja. Someone reaches out, says, “Hey, I created a course actually in my backyard in the middle of nowhere. If you want to come, I’ll teach you how to ninja.” And I’m like, all right. I mean, not sketchy at all. I guess I’m going to go to this course and figure it out. And I just want to show you how day one went for me. Yeah, this is me trying the salmon ladder literally, day one. Broke my nose right there.
All right. But you know what? After two weeks, we’re off to Pittsburgh. That’s where we’re competing. And I started to learn a lot about it as I was there, as I didn’t know anything about this at all. So I’m going to give you five fun facts about American Ninja Warrior that I learned that night.
The first thing is, this is filmed from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM. So thank goodness I was working the overnight shift. So super dark. They want those big bright lights. Number two, you have no idea what the obstacles are going to be before you get there. But what’s really funny is as they’re building the obstacles, people will be out there with binoculars trying to spy on what they’re making, and they’ll create replicas of homemade versions of the obstacles of the sketchy ones that we can try before we go on the course. So we don’t really have an idea of what exactly we’re going to come into when we do this. And we still have the binoculars here.
But now for the Ninja Warrior course, the qualifier that we have, it’s a 100 people. The first night there’s five obstacles. Whoever completes the course that goes the furthest and the fastest, those top 30 and the top five female will move on to the next night to complete a longer course. And then the top 15 will move on to Vegas to compete in the national finals to try and win a million dollars and win and go up to Mount Midoriyama. Okay? So again, didn’t know anything about this when I showed up, so I’m just kind of there.
Number four, they’re going to make adjustments throughout the night on this course. The weather mic, it’s outside. They’re going to make adjustments. Maybe they want someone to get through a little more than the other. So things kind of get adjusted. And the first night I waited until 6:30 in the morning and then the lights came on. They’re like, actually, you’re going to compete tomorrow. So I waited all night and didn’t go at all.
And number five, you have no idea if you’re going to be aired. So after this, I got all my friends together to watch me compete in Pittsburgh, and I wasn’t shown at all. So after that though, I was hooked. I’m like, I’m going to be one of those top five females and I’m going to be the next top. But I didn’t get a call for two years after that. No call. Didn’t get on American Ninja Warrior until finally on season 10, I finally got a call again, because this time I had a story. And this is a TV show, so they want a story.
And my story was that I finally quit that biochemistry job. I opened my own gym so you could see me. This is the video that I have flexing. I’m like, cool. I quit my pharmaceutical job and I also wind up getting on the cover of Women’s Health Magazine, which is pretty awesome. And I had a boyfriend for the shortest time, which I shouldn’t have put in the video. And now I was ready. I get up to that course, the strongest, most confident version of myself that I’ve ever been in my entire life. I get to the first obstacle and I’m jumping side to side, grabbing onto those little pieces. Have you seen that before? The second one, I’m doing a big Lache obstacle. That means you’re going to go over. Do you see it right there? Swinging from one, catching the next one, and then landing.
And then the next one was something called the broken bridge. So that means you have to basically send yourself a prayer and go as fast as you can through it. And then I landed, and I knew once I made it to this final obstacle that I would be a top five female. That I would’ve made it. So this obstacle is called the wing nut. So what you do is you sway a side to side on it. You go from one, you catch to the other. And as I’m going, I’m looking at my coach, I’m like, I’ve done this before. I am going to do this. I’m going to become a top five female. Then I go to the next one. I grab and I go to dismount, and I black out. Completely blackout. And as I’m sitting there wondering what just has happened, I’m going to show you it right here. I had realized that I tore my ACL in front of everybody. So I literally went from the strongest I’ve ever been to the weakest in a matter of seconds. And I kept asking myself why me? Why couldn’t this have gone right? I did everything right. I kept going, even when it was tough and I didn’t get on the show.
Why does this have to happen to me? And I got really stuck in that for a long time, for months. So much to the point where I was like, do I even need to live anymore? Honestly, I’m the ninja. Right now, I can’t even walk. What am I going to do? So I sat really down in the dumps. And then finally I went to my doctor and he is like, “All right, let’s schedule this ACL surgery.” Angelo, that’s my doctor. He was like, “Are you going to compete on American Ninja Warrior?” And I said, “Well, duh. Of course I’m going to go back on American Ninja Warrior.”
And that’s when the comeback story really started for me. And when my mentor said to me, she’s like, “It’s cool that you’re sad. It’s cool that you’re frustrated from what’s happening to you, but do not get stuck there.” And that’s when I really shifted my mindset. I decided I didn’t know what I couldn’t do, but what can I do? And I decided to document my journey.
So in my journey, I documented everything from me getting a blood clot and having to stick tissues up my nose because my nose was bleeding as I was coaching people, from me putting that brace on and then doing everything that I could without my leg. Showing me going on the bike and finally getting that first turn. I showcased the entire story as I went. And you bet after that, I got a call next year, right? Because I had a story. I had a comeback story, and they wanted me to be on that show again.
So I remember getting back and standing there looking at the sky and just being like I’m so excited that I made it back on this course. But what I’d realized that I’d become so much more. I’d realized that the flashback from everything that I’ve been through, everything that I’ve done, it didn’t matter what happened on the course. This wasn’t about getting back on the course again. This is about getting back to me. This is about learning all the things that I could overcome. And you see me here, I take the brace, I unstrap it, I chuck it in the audience and I’m like, let’s go. Because it really didn’t matter what happened at that point.
What’s really cool, as you see this, those are my friends all cheering me on the side. They do a little zoom in on the knee. You can see the scar on the knee as I’m going, before I jump into the first obstacle. But this was so different because every single obstacle you’ll see in every single landing how excited I was that I was here, that I was doing this. So you’ll see the landing here and I’m like, woo, let’s go. Got this. Then I get to this Lache obstacle, and you’ll see this big smile on my face. Again, just so excited for what my body’s doing. I really didn’t care what happened. I was just so excited to be there swinging. I make my first big down dismount, boom. And now I get to this next obstacle and I knew once I made it past this, it’s called the bacon. I call it the bacon. Get past the bacon, that I would be a top female again. I would be exactly where I was last year.
So everyone was falling on this obstacle exactly in this spot right here. I grab over, I’m gripping on as tight as I possibly can. It’s freezing cold outside. I knew on this next obstacle, everyone was falling in between this jump. I’m like, cool. I have to get my hips up as high as I possibly can. And you could see my face. My face is just holding on for dear life. I’m like, I am going to do this. My fingers are almost slipping. And again, once I landed, I knew that I again would be a top female. And I did it. And you can see this look on my face here. I was crying. I was so excited that I had done this after all that time, after all that hard work, after going through all this tough times as a much better version of myself. This really did actually need to happen to me.
So this wasn’t an accident after all, was it? And there’s some really important learnings here, and I’m going to tell you what I learned through my story. I learned that I could have stayed stuck and continued to wonder why me? But growth hurts, right? And you have an opportunity. You can stay stuck or you can lean in. And that’s exactly what I did. And what I realized is I was so much more capable than I’d ever imagined.