The words that changed his life

“I fell in love with things that created a little bit of fear inside of me.”

For Logan Aldridge , that meant keeping up with his older brother and his friends while they pulled crazy, daring stunts. He credits his resilience to the tough love that came from his brother, and it’s what would help him overcome one of the most difficult situations in his life: the loss of his left arm.

He was thirteen when the rope on his wakeboard became so tightly wrapped around it that it tore through skin and muscle. In the ambulance he asked him mother, “What if I lose my arm?” Without skipping a beat she said, “Logan, it’s just an arm.”

Logan told me, “As soon as she said that to me, it was just, well, I do have another one. […] Maybe this injury is way more severe or serious than I thought. Maybe I should just be thankful that I'm alive right now. To this day, it’s continued to be my mantra.”

Logan is now a Peloton Instructor and the co-founder of Adaptive Training Academy. His goal is to make fitness more accessible for all individuals, which is no small task considering 61 million U.S. adults live with a disability, according to the CDC. As we made a sandwich—two, in fact, because I had very little faith in the first recipe he gave (peanut butter, banana, mayonnaise)—he explained why he loves his job so much. The biggest thing is the ability to motivate people, which is very different than just inspiring. One just elicits an emotion; the other gets people to change.

“While inspiration is relevant, motivation is that next step,” he said, “And in leadership, […] you need to be an inspirational resource, but to keep people coming back and staying on track, you've got to create motivation.”

Watch our full conversation below and next time you see Logan on the leaderboard, make sure to ask him what the “Blue plate special” is.