From Rock Bottom to Resilience: Colin Potts on Faith, Loss, and Learning to Walk Again

From Rock Bottom to Resilience: Colin Potts on Faith, Loss, and Learning to Walk Again

In this episode of Thursday Tea with Sami, I sit down with Colin Potts, COO at Regenerative Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, whose life has been shaped by extraordinary loss and an equally extraordinary will to keep living fully. By age 33, Colin had lost both parents, two siblings, and all of his grandparents. After 21 surgeries over 17 years, he ultimately lost his leg — and had to learn to walk, swim, and run all over again.

What struck me most in this conversation wasn't just what Colin has survived, but how deliberately he's chosen to rebuild after each loss. We talk about the six years he spent caring for his mother during her illness, and the reframe they built together during that time: focus on what you have, not what you don't; focus on what you can do, not what you can't. We also talk about grief, the "void" that follows losing someone you've cared for, the vulnerability of sharing hard stories publicly, and the mantra that carried him through learning to walk again: just one more step.

This is a conversation about resilience as something practiced daily — not a personality trait, but a series of small, deliberate choices.

In this episode, we cover:
→ How Colin and his mother restructured her days around her strengths after her cancer diagnosis
→ The concept of the "void" that follows caregiving and loss, and how to begin rebuilding after it
→ Why vulnerability and honest storytelling build trust and connection
→ The emotional and physical process of learning to walk again after amputation
→ Colin's "negativity vortex" concept — and how to avoid getting pulled in
→ The power of finding one positive thing each day, even on the hardest days
→ Why believing in yourself is often the first and most essential step toward rebuilding
→ A strengths-based approach to facing any major life challenge

Connect with Colin at ColinQPotts.com or on Instagram and Facebook @ColinQPotts — and be on the lookout for his new book, coming out this fall.

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or psychological care.