Well, hello, my friends, and welcome to the Live Inspired podcast with John O'Leary, Monday morning moments.

On any given day in Marietta, Georgia, men line up for a haircut from Travis Sanders.

But what draws the men in and liberates them once they're there isn't simply getting their

hairstyle.

That's part of it.

But it's really a connection, it's encouragement, and it's a powerful

reminder that hardship does not get the final word. Let me tell you more about it. You see, two years

ago, the man inspiring this line was not cutting hair. He was fighting for his life. It began with

numbness in his toes, and then within days, Travis, the barber, was in an

emergency room, and then Travis, the barber, was in emergency surgery.

Doctors fought to restore circulation. Hope rose, and then fell. Procedure. After procedure, after procedure, after procedure, kept showing up in Travis' world until he faced what none of us are expecting. Amputation. In Travis's case, it was amputation above the knee.

I know something about that moment. After the fire that changed my body and my future, I remember lying in a hospital bed

wondering what life could possibly look like on the other side of amputation.

Giving up for Travis would have been understandable.

I know I wanted to.

Travis could have too, but instead, surrounded by friends and surrounded by family,

he made a quiet but powerful decision. I'm going to move forward. He chose gratitude over bitterness,

he chose possibility over fear, he chose purpose over self-pity. Within days of returning home, he was back at the barbershop,

first on crutches, rebuilding his strength slowly, long before receiving his prosthetics. He was

back in a gym, and step by step, he was reclaiming the gift of his life. But as powerful as his

work is at the barbershop,

perhaps his finest work is at the hospital.

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