Author event! Amanda Goetz & Joanna Schroeder
[0:00]Yeah. We're live. No, we can't slouch. We're really excited to have these two ladies
[0:10]here. We're celebrating Thompson by Amanda Gas, and we are very excited about that, and we're
[0:17]excited about doing it back for talking about your voice. And we're going to do about a 30 minute
[0:24]conversation, about 15 minutes for Q&A, and then about 15 minutes signing. We have both of these
[0:29]books available to purchase, and yeah, it's going to be a great conversation. Take good.
[0:33]Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, so first of all, what is taxic right? Like, what does it mean?
[0:39]Yes. Okay. So the definition is hustle without intention. So we kind of live in a society right
[0:46]now that's like, hustle is so bad, and vision is bad. You should be in your soft girl era,
[0:51]your trad wife era. And I wanted to create a book that created space for the part of yourself that
[0:57]still wants to go after big things and have big goals. But it hustle without intention,
[1:05]toxic rate means two other things. So you're going after something big, but you're doing it
[1:12]without spin cycles or checkpoints to kind of acknowledge what's happening around you.
[1:17]And then the third thing is you do it at the expense of the other versions of yourself.
[1:23]And so this whole book, you'll meet the main framework is called character theory, and you'll meet
[1:30]10 characters that make up the movie of your life. And as you're meeting the characters,
[1:36]you can start to audit and see which of them maybe have been written out of your movie,
[1:42]or which ones are taking over kind of the whole plot. And I think a lot of us struggle with this
[1:48]because when we think about these other versions of ourselves, we're all kind of, if you're an
[1:54]ambitious person, you're also a gold star chaser. So if I'm going to do anything, I want to do
[1:58]it at 100%. So a lot of this book is really about finding your enoughness line for each of the
[2:06]characters. And what does it look like if you only have 20% to give to that character? And you give
[2:12]20% that how can you feel good? And my hope and mission for this entire book is to to really
[2:20]start to remove the guilt that we feel prioritizing any part of ourselves. Because when you prioritize
[2:29]a part of yourself, you're usually deprioritizing another part of yourself. And we need to be able
[2:35]to do that without guilt. And so it's all about bringing more intention back into your life.
[2:41]So I'll tell you anecdotally, like I have a full-time job and three kids and I wrote this book.
[2:46]And I remember it was like the ambition that I had for 15 years building this career,
[2:52]it was like I never stopped. And I got this book deal and we wrote the book and I'm like halfway
[2:57]through the book after three years of research. And I was like, I don't want to write a book anymore.
[3:02]And it was like, no, I don't I want to rest. I'm tired. And it was funny because that was when I
[3:08]realized that I was my goal, like you're saying intention, my intention was to achieve. And I had
[3:15]to shift my attention because I'd achieved it. I'd gotten the book deal. I'd gotten it all done.
[3:20]And I was like, no, this I realized no, no, no, shift your intention. Because until then, I just
[3:26]kept it's like a cycle that never ends. Like you will exhaust yourself, right? So what are some
[3:32]signs that we like me in that example that your grit is toxic, that your ambition might be
[3:43]something like a bottomless pit? Yeah. Well, let me share a couple of stories that are in the
[3:48]book. So if you if you read the book, you'll hear some of these. The first is let me just take back
[3:53]to the origin of character theory. So it was a typical day in my life. I was leading marketing at a
[4:00]a public company in New York City. I had three kids under the age of four and I was going through
[4:05]a divorce. So I was running, dropping the kids off at preschool, getting on the subway, getting downtown,
[4:13]running from leading editorial meetings, product meetings to the pumping room, back to the
[4:19]meetings, back to the pumping room, leaving work a five o'clock on the dot. So I could go see my little
[4:24]kids because I go to bed so early when they're that age. And that night, I remember sitting
[4:30]in the rocking chair and I had my baby and I took out my notes app and I'm sure I could pull it
[4:36]up. It's it's way varied in there. But I wrote the words, you can have it all. And I was like,
[4:44]where is the friction coming from right now? Because I am I have an amazing career. I love my kids.
[4:51]I love being a mom and I realized it wasn't from the all. It was coming from the you. So when I
[4:58]was in that moment.
[5:00]I actually started to look at each of these versions of myself in a vacuum, which I had never done before because how many times are we taught like bring your whole self to work, find alignment.
[5:12]And in that moment, I was like, the work version of me doesn't want to leave every meeting early and go pump.
[5:21]The work version of me is finally feeling confident in my career. I'm killing it. I don't want to leave it five.
[5:30]But then the mom version of me when I acknowledged her in a vacuum.
[5:36]I don't give a fuck what's going on in slack and email and logging back in to do that deck.
[5:43]Then there's these other versions of me, the version of me that wants to not be in service to anyone and figure out what I want and how I want to grow.
[5:56]Then there's a version of me that wanted to date and rediscover my sexuality and make space for partnership again and what that looks like.
[6:04]And so I started to just honor this almost oppositional like forces that are inside of me, this diversity and that it's okay that I have this complexity inside of me and I needed to start to create space for each of those parts and also acknowledge that it's really, really difficult for me to go from very diverse characters right into each other.
[6:33]I can't go from work mode right into mom mode. I need a transition sequence. So there's an entire chapter in there about building your transition sequences.
[6:43]There's the goddess character, the part of you that's inside of you that does want to flirt and feel desired and feel sexy.
[6:52]I don't know about you guys but like my goddess character hates kids. And I can't see my kids if I want to go into that character.
[7:02]So I have to have a transition sequence where my partner is putting the kids to bed and I don't see them and I can go get into my own goddess character.
[7:10]So that's the origin of all of this. Now you ask the question like where's that bottomless pit.
[7:17]The thing is about checking in with yourself and creating intentionality about that check in.
[7:24]So the second story that I'd love to share from the book is I was on a female founder retreat in Tulum when I had raised.
[7:33]This is after COVID. I had raised a couple of million dollars for my VC backed startup and I was in full founder mode. My CEO character was like full taking over the spotlight.
[7:46]I had just moved to Miami with my three kids and I was living in an apartment. I was single. I had no real friends or community down there.
[7:56]And so I went on this retreat to try to like build community and on this retreat they had us do this exercise.
[8:03]So we sat on the beach in a group and we had to picture our most perfect day.
[8:08]So we closed our eyes and we visualized in granular detail like wake up on the most perfect day money is not an object.
[8:19]What is what is what is around you what does your what are your sheets look like like what's the weather outside like in granular detail.
[8:28]And then afterwards we shared our perfect day and of course I'm like the type a I was like I'll go first.
[8:34]So I share my perfect day and I was like I got up and I was in this like beautiful home and there's palm tree swing outside and I had a partner.
[8:44]And I had breakfast with my kids and then I went through the day and I did meaningful work and then I did a workout with friends and then I hosted a barbecue in my backyard.
[8:56]And so I shared this day and then the woman next to me went her perfect day started getting hair makeup because she was about to be on the today show because she was featured on the cover of Forbes because her beauty brand was the fastest growing beauty brand.
[9:12]And she and I literally thought to myself I did the exercise wrong like I'm on a female founder retreat like I'm supposed to be a female founder.
[9:22]And I sat with that for a while and I realized no this is the purpose of this exercise I took a moment to realize there are parts of my life that are screaming for more attention.
[9:33]And it's now my job to rotate the burners a bit and say okay this has been getting a lot of my attention I'm going to now.
[9:44]So fast forward two years later I do that exercise every year on a solo trip.
[9:50]And two years later I my perfect day was walking into a bookstore and seeing my book and having my kids.
[10:00]with me. And it was so powerful of a reminder that ambition is about seasonality and hustle
[10:09]is not inherently bad. But if you don't have these checkpoints where you check in with yourself
[10:16]and you don't rearrange the stove top a little bit, the balance is not really possible
[10:24]in the macro, it's definitely not possible in the micro. But you're also not finding it in
[10:30]the macro of life. You're going to look back and be like, well, I didn't have a season of rest or
[10:35]time focused on my kids. It sounds like it's autopilot. And when you go in an autopilot,
[10:41]the scenery gets missed. So I loved this. And in your book, I loved reading about the
[10:46]characters. And those of you who've read the book or if you have it in front of you,
[10:50]it's page 79 and 78. She has all of the characters listed. And as I reviewed them,
[10:57]I tried to really pay attention to how I reacted. And I thought, well, which one is me?
[11:06]Which one is me? Which one do I relate to the mouse just skimming this? And I was like,
[11:10]oh, the lazy girl, the lazy girl. And that was the story. And I think anybody that knows me knows
[11:15]I'm so not lazy. And the opposite, but that was my like kind of shame point. Like just
[11:22]store. And then I thought, man, this is a really good opportunity for me to be like,
[11:26]is all of my drive a reaction to some part of me. That is like, no, you're really lazy. And so you
[11:34]have to keep achieving it. It's got to be a best seller. And it's a so do you, when you skim through
[11:39]these and when you were writing them, is there a part that you would like to ignore? Is one of
[11:47]these characters that you are harder for you to access and find balance for?
[11:54]Well, I want to first kind of respond to what you said. I think it's important that as you meet
[11:59]your characters, you do so without shame and judgment, right? And then the second part of that is
[12:07]what script are they reading from? And you meet the different levels of influence for your
[12:16]characters. So there's societal influence, right? What does society say? Like right now,
[12:22]if you're not swimming with the cultural societal movement, you feel like you're drowning.
[12:29]But if you're swimming with it, like, oh, I'm in, let's use the girl boss era, which it's
[12:35]ironic, like I am the host of the girl boss podcast now. And when you think about what that meant
[12:40]in 2013, it's like women need to be leaning in breaking glass ceilings. But if you weren't doing
[12:47]that at the time, you probably felt really guilty. Now we're in an era of like being your feminine,
[12:56]your soft girl, your lazy girl era, your trad wife, again, neither of these things are bad. And
[13:03]that's the purpose of this book. We have to start to stop putting guilt and shame wrapped into
[13:10]these things. So that's societal and cultural script writing. Your character, if your CEO
[13:18]character is being put on the back burner and you feel really guilty about that, who's writing that
[13:24]script? Is it society? Is it cultural? Is it generational? For me, and to answer your question
[13:32]about like which of these are hardest for me, I grew up in a household where my mom didn't work,
[13:39]but she also really struggled with her own identity. Yes. And it was almost her caregiver character
[13:50]grew really toxic. She poured from an empty cup constantly and you felt it. And so I struggle
[14:00]immensely with the CEO character leading and the explorer character leading as a generational,
[14:08]like I'm trying to break a generational cycle. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to keep doing more
[14:15]experiencing more because I don't want to ever be that. And take that out on your rights. But
[14:22]I have to unlearn that script because I'm not adult 40 year old Amanda isn't writing that script.
[14:28]So there's a tool in the book that my therapist gave me. And so she I wrote her into the book
[14:34]because it's her tool, which is the school bus. Yeah. And so at any given time, the adult version
[14:41]of that character needs to be driving the bus. But there are all these past versions of you.
[14:48]There's the like six year old version of you in the back seats. There's the 12 year old version
[14:54]version of you in the back seat. There's the 21 year old version of me that got married. It's still
[15:00]college in the drive in the backseat. And when things happen in life and you're on autopilot,
[15:06]sometimes the past version of you hijacks the bus and starts driving you to burnout town
[15:14]or spiral city or codependency in all of these unhealthy places for each of the characters. So it's
[15:21]about, and this is obviously all the like reparenting work that there's lots of books out there
[15:27]and people way more qualified to talk about. But what I've learned in my work with my therapist
[15:33]is truly about when I feel that I'm not, I feel really out of touch with myself. That's usually a
[15:41]time where either a younger version of me or a younger version of one of these characters hijacks.
[15:48]Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. I think that we have, like you've been saying, they're such a
[15:54]binary. Like I have a degree in gender studies. And I remember it was so important when I learned
[15:59]about the Madonna versus horror binary. And you couldn't be a good mother and a sexy lady, right? So
[16:06]those two things. And then we, when we were coming up in our careers, I'm a little older than you,
[16:10]but there was like the good mom and the girl lost. And you couldn't be both. And if you tried,
[16:18]we were all trying and we all got exhausted. And then it was stop trying to have it all. But my
[16:23]reaction was always, what am I supposed to do then? What do I have to go? Yeah. So I love that. These,
[16:29]these characters all go together. So you have talked about the spin cycles. Tell us what the
[16:35]spin cycles are and how to implement them into our lives and why. Okay. So I'm sure many of us have
[16:42]done some loads of laundry in our day. So a spin cycle is the last cycle of the washing cycle that
[16:49]the whole purpose is to move really fast to get the heaviness out. So that when you put the
[16:54]clothes in the dryer, it doesn't take as long. They're not soaking wet clothes. Okay. So I started
[16:59]to have this visual in life where there'd be a season where I felt this like build up of residue
[17:05]of like, oh, things are getting heavier. And I need to do something to alleviate the heaviness.
[17:13]Now in the book, you'll meet the big three, the characters that take over most ambitious
[17:18]women's lives, which are the CEO, the caregiver, and the partner. All in service to other people.
[17:25]You mean there's other things than those three? Right. Because that's all I am.
[17:29]Right. And that's, I mean, it's really hard. When I coach women, I'll literally be like,
[17:35]if you were to go away for a week and you had to be nothing to anyone else, what would you do?
[17:41]Look at that.
[17:43]Right. What would you do? And so that's where the other seven characters come in. But for me,
[17:48]a spin cycle is this intentional moment after an intense buildup period that I have to remove
[17:55]the heaviness. And I have a couple of ways I do spin cycles. So there's many spin cycles. So how
[18:03]many of you like go from working all day, super intense, intense, intense, intense, intense. And then
[18:09]you go right into caregiver mode and you didn't have any moment to yourself. Right. So I do a commute
[18:15]bath, which is a mini spin cycle. A commute bath is my 30 minutes before I have to go into mom mode
[18:22]where I go become a mommy. And I go and I allow myself to soften and get into caregiver mode.
[18:29]Because in, in a vacuum, CEO Amanda really intense, really assertive caregiver Amanda really silly
[18:39]loves a fart joke. And I need space to be able to allow myself to transition to that. So that's
[18:47]a mini spin cycle. But a bigger spin cycle, like for me, there's a version of me that loves
[18:54]to have a drunken night with my girlfriends and go dancing and just like not feel like this
[19:01]really intense adulting human, like to remind myself that I'm still young and I'm still can be
[19:07]carefree. That's also a little spin cycle. And I try to do that once a quarter because that
[19:14]infuses levity and fun. So it's about the intentionality of acknowledging a lot of intensity and
[19:23]heaviness has built up. And I need to bring in some other characters to remove some of that that
[19:28]build up. I like that a lot. And I'm glad you said it because I keep in this, I would love
[19:37]some advice about how to do this. I have a tendency to say, well, things are about to slow down.
[19:44]Right. If I can just get through things, I'm sure I feel like we all do that. It's like,
[19:49]oh, well, Halloween's going to pass and then things are going to slow down.
[19:52]Right. Then Thanksgiving. And then it's like, we just got to get that quarterly report done and things
[19:56]are going to slow down. And it is, I mean, it is quarterly report to quarterly.
[20:00]report it feels like it's just right there and like with the book promotion we promoted for four or
[20:06]five intense weeks and I was like oh after that it's gonna slow down it doesn't slow down don't
[20:11]tell me that no but like it's because I keep adding do you know what I'm saying so like yeah I can
[20:19]be like why is my life so crazy and my best friend I'm so lucky to have an ambitious best friend
[20:24]who will go it's because you keep adding things your life is crazy because you're like here's crazy
[20:29]crazy come on in right so like yeah what would you say for those of us who do that yeah how do
[20:36]we break that cycle yeah so in the book I talk about the the two do's the two do's so thinking
[20:45]about your the characters you want to bring into the movie of your life what are two meaningful
[20:52]impactful things you can do in that day for them so for me every day I do two meaningful things
[21:01]at work like working on a deck or needing to get that report out or whatever if I can get those
[21:07]two things done the rest of the day is gravy that's enough two meaningful impactful things a day is
[21:15]10 a week that's more than most people do in a month because they fall into the two common
[21:22]traps of ambitious people okay the urgency trap and the significance trap when everything is urgent
[21:30]nothing is and when everything is significant nothing is yeah so my advice is when you get that
[21:38]inbound you start to say like what's the level of effort what's the level of impact here is this
[21:44]really a significant as I'm thinking about and I will do the math and say okay this podcast I'd
[21:52]love to do that podcast but let's be honest it reaches a thousand people even if a thousand people
[21:58]listen to it maybe only ten will click on the link and maybe of the ten that click on the link
[22:02]two people will buy the book okay is there a better use like but now let's look at our other
[22:09]characters because I think work is the easiest one for us to kind of apply the two do matrix but
[22:15]what would it look like to build intentionality around being a parent or being a partner what are
[22:22]two ways I can connect with my partner Dan today okay for us our two do's are always we try to have
[22:31]coffee together and we have eight to nine p.m the kids have to be in their rooms whether they're
[22:37]reading or asleep they have to be in their rooms and we get one hour of dedicated time and the kids
[22:41]know it they we guard that time we're like sorry this is our time for my kids what are two meaningful
[22:50]things I can do well some days I'd love to be done with work it for and be there after school
[22:56]but that doesn't happen all the time so what are the meaningful things I can do where we're
[23:00]going to have dinner together as a family and I'm not going to rush tuck in each kid gets a
[23:05]30 minute tuck in so again and I said this kind of in the beginning it's about finding that
[23:10]enoughness line and saying if I do those two things really well I'm okay with that today and it's
[23:19]okay and I can't do more because here's the thing your job will always want more from you your
[23:25]kids will always want more from you your partner will always want more from you your friends
[23:30]will always want more from you you in the shift I hope this book makes in a woman's mind at
[23:37]least it did for me is you're in control of that you are the director of your movie and you get
[23:46]to dictate how long that character is being asked to do things and and not setting the the stopping
[23:54]and I think boundaries are a big part of your character of character theory yeah I love that it's
[24:01]two things because I love tools my book is all tools yeah so many times we talk about theory but like
[24:08]the graph the her book is full of graphs lots of branches and that is what we need her daughter
[24:14]marked every image in the book so as you can see there are a lot of emissions I am an overachiever
[24:20]but I'm not this much I don't know my neighbor that the two things are great because I'm already
[24:28]thinking like two things I could do for my daughter like she doesn't need a long tuck in but she
[24:33]needs to read a book where it's like the lights on and we're looking at each other so like little
[24:37]things like yeah knowing her and then what is the one that's almost 18 what is he need and they're
[24:42]going to be different right of course so I have a question I want to know about this 25% CEO
[24:49]and I had to look because I was worried I was going to say the wrong person no that's right okay
[24:53]so I do this math equation it's one of these it's a chart so I I looked at what I called the peak
[25:00]adulting years. So let's say like for math to math well we live to 80 years. The
[25:07]first 20 were like learning to become an adult and the last 20 were like reminiscing
[25:12]about all the things we did as an adult. So we have these kind of 40 years to take the
[25:16]clay of life and mold it into something that we'd love to live beyond us. If we
[25:23]look at 40 years it's 14,000 days. I believe it's days, four weeks I think it's days. But if you
[25:34]remove Monday through Friday it's now 4,000 days. I don't want to live my life just for the
[25:46]weekends. And so if you are only leaving the weekends because I'm just trying to get through.
[25:55]If I can just get through these busy work weeks I will start working out again. If I can just get
[26:00]through these busy work weeks. We just said that one about working out literally today.
[26:06]And so this book is about like creating permission for the 20% space. Like I'm on this book
[26:17]tour right now. I can't get my full workout in that I normally do. But yesterday I was like
[26:22]I've got 17 minutes. I'm going to go and I'm going to lift up some weights for a little bit.
[26:26]I'm going to put them down and then that's enough for today. But the book talks about taking
[26:32]back your five to nine. Now I know you're all saying like I don't get done with work and then
[26:36]I have to pick up the kids and then I hear that. What I would ask is pick one character that you
[26:43]pictured in your perfect day that hasn't been in your movie. Pick one night and say what would
[26:51]it look like if I guarded this night for that character. How easy is it for us to prioritize other
[26:58]people's priorities? Oh our kid has swimming class or practice or whatever you call it or oh my partner
[27:07]has to work late or oh I need to support my friends coming to their book event. Like we prioritize
[27:15]other people and we hold those as true. And yet we let our characters be the last on the list.
[27:23]So the five to nine is in that whole math equation is just reminding you we can't create such a
[27:29]high barrier to entry for our other characters. Because oh seven other characters get Saturday
[27:37]Sunday? Yeah. That's not possible because those other three still chime in on the weekends,
[27:43]right? You still have to be a caregiver and a partner and sometimes you work. And so it's about
[27:48]creating some more space in the week and some more intentionality. So I go through my five to nine
[27:54]cadence. Mondays because Mondays feel really intense to me. Mondays is for my soloist character.
[28:02]After we get the kids to bed, Dan goes and plays video games and he loves it and I get to go
[28:08]be by myself because I just need that solo time to kind of just check in with myself. Tuesday's
[28:15]is very intentional family night. So we will do family games. Wednesday is date night. So now my
[28:21]goddess character character can come back in. I don't know how she doesn't like kids. We already know
[28:25]this. So I can like we can go out Thursday is our family lazy night. So you have a version of
[28:33]yourself that is the lazy character. But when you meet the lazy character in a vacuum, I just want
[28:38]to call this out because I think it's so important. Your lazy character, the purpose of that
[28:44]character is to give you emotional rest, cognitive rest, sensory rest. But how many times do you
[28:52]say, I'm going to go decompress on the couch. And then when you're on the couch, you scroll tick-tock,
[28:59]which is so not emotional rest. There is some dark shit going on in the world. Then you're like,
[29:07]oh, I have to order stuff for that school party. And oh, there's a birthday party this weekend. So
[29:11]I need to get a present for the kids friends. And oh, what are my friends doing for that party?
[29:18]That's not cognitive rest. So you're a lazy character. You have to guard that time. So Thursday
[29:24]nights, we do family lazy night. We order in the TV is on. Phones are away from us. And we watch
[29:30]something fun as a family where we're just becoming one with the couch. And so you can start to
[29:36]to see that you can't be everything all the time. But if you start to bring some of this
[29:41]intentionality in, you start to feel more connected to your larger self because you're honoring
[29:48]these different versions. I like that. So I have a wild swing of a question. Let's do it.
[29:54]Okay. We're going to leave specific politics aside. Okay. But
[30:00]But you work with really successful women, okay?
[30:05]Why do you think we have not been able to have a woman president yet?
[30:09]Oh, God.
[30:10]I know.
[30:11]It's a wild swing.
[30:13]And let me give you some direction.
[30:17]The patriarchy.
[30:18]Well, yeah.
[30:19]I wonder if one of the women in this room had political ambitions, okay?
[30:29]What could you take from this book and what you've learned to help her ascend and still
[30:36]be public facing and kind of balance all this crap that society puts on us?
[30:44]I think that this is how much time do we have.
[30:49]I know.
[30:50]I know.
[30:51]I know.
[30:52]I should have gave it to you before, so you can think about it.
[30:55]It's fine.
[30:56]I think we live in, we still live in a very much patriarchal society and I think the internalized
[31:07]misogyny that happens across both genders and that's the part that I don't think that
[31:15]we acknowledge as much as how much other women hate other women and that we have so
[31:24]much work to do to unlearn the zero-sum game of woman, a powerful womanhood and a woman
[31:35]rising.
[31:37]There's so many people that want to support somebody as they're rising up.
[31:44]But then if they get too high, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we got a knock you down.
[31:47]And we see it with influencers and creators all the time.
[31:51]It's like, oh, this up-and-coming cool person.
[31:53]I have experienced it personally.
[31:56]We love to root for an underdog and tell that person needs to be put back in their place.
[32:03]It's so true.
[32:05]So it's we have a long ways to go when we have a lot of people not doing the inner work
[32:11]to understand where that's coming from.
[32:13]Yeah, it always seems to me like you get somebody rising to power and if you just look
[32:19]at like a Hillary Clinton and a Kamala Harris, it's like, well, this one has kids, but
[32:24]you can't be a good mom if she's doing that.
[32:26]And this one doesn't have kids and we're wrong with it that she doesn't have kids and
[32:29]it is.
[32:30]Yeah.
[32:31]Yeah.
[32:32]Like she must be so cold and then this one, you know, she's not going to be firm on whatever,
[32:36]you know?
[32:37]Right.
[32:38]Right.
[32:39]Right.
[32:40]I mean, look, this is what women are facing at a macro level.
[32:42]Yes.
[32:43]Right.
[32:44]Oh, you're like, I've experienced this even just being away from my kids right now on
[32:48]the floor.
[32:49]Yes.
[32:50]The comments.
[32:51]Oh, I could never.
[32:52]I could never be away from my kids.
[32:55]And it's like, that's, do you not understand what is layered into that statement that
[33:00]you're saying to me, what are you saying to me right now that I'm failing, right?
[33:05]Right.
[33:06]That I'm not being a good mom.
[33:07]Yeah.
[33:08]So we have to understand and acknowledge that this is not about an us or them and that
[33:17]we contain all of it.
[33:20]Yeah.
[33:21]Like some days, I'm not a great mom because I'm killing it at work.
[33:26]Yeah.
[33:27]But I've accepted that and I don't feel guilty about that.
[33:31]And then some days, I'm really great at being a mom and I let my inbox go and I don't
[33:36]answer that email and I can't, I say I can't make that call or whatever.
[33:41]We have to acknowledge the multi hyphenate woman and we still live in a society craving
[33:47]to put us in binary boxes.
[33:49]Yeah.
[33:50]And the reason I asked this is when I was looking at those character traits that we were
[33:53]all looking at, I was like, I feel like this also could be a recipe for a successful woman
[33:59]to win over the public to be like just trying to let all of those parts of herself show.
[34:07]So if anyone wants to run for president, in fact, I've got you all here tonight.
[34:14]And then the last photo question is just this, a lot of this feels like it's accessible
[34:19]if you have money for a nanny and spa days, you know, talk about self-care, everyone
[34:24]thinks it was spa days.
[34:25]And I know that that's not what it really is, right?
[34:29]It feels like it gets categorized into rich lady stuff.
[34:34]Is there a way in which we can, I mean, a girl boss, everyone thinks it's associated
[34:38]with all this privilege.
[34:40]Yeah.
[34:42]If you're that mom that's living paycheck to paycheck or that woman, you're going to
[34:45]have to be a mom to relate to this.
[34:49]Are there any tips for how to integrate it into your life when you feel like, oh my god,
[34:54]I'm just surviving?
[34:56]Well, I wrote this book and or started to write the concept.
[35:00]of this book as a single mom with a lot of debt from my divorce and with a VC backstart
[35:08]up making not paying myself a lot of money.
[35:12]So I want to acknowledge that this is not a book where, and I talk about that in many
[35:20]times where there are certain things that yes, this is a privileged position, but a commute
[35:26]back, saying to yourself, you are worthy of giving yourself 20 minutes to transition,
[35:33]that costs nothing.
[35:37]And when you look at something in your initial reactions, well, I could never.
[35:43]I'd ask what script you're reading from that you can't give yourself 20 minutes.
[35:53]Oh, because everyone needs me, the whole place would go to shit if I'm not doing everything.
[36:01]Okay.
[36:02]What if you let the other people in your life close that gap and including our children?
[36:09]Yeah.
[36:10]When I was a single mom, I couldn't, I had three small kids.
[36:15]I learned very quickly how capable they are because I'm dealing with a baby and I can't
[36:23]go find the snack that the middle one wants.
[36:29]She finds it.
[36:30]Yeah.
[36:31]Right?
[36:32]Like, they're so allowing people to close that gap and if you're not allowing people
[36:37]are giving them space to try, like where is that coming from?
[36:41]That is part of the problem, isn't it?
[36:42]Yeah.
[36:43]Well, especially for very driven women is, we do it right, and they all do it wrong.
[36:49]Yeah.
[36:50]Obviously.
[36:51]So we have to be able to let that go too.
[36:53]Yeah.
[36:54]Well, should we open it up for questions?
[36:56]Does anyone have any questions?
[36:58]I'm not ready for questions, but maybe she should.
[37:03]Yes.
[37:04]So one of the things that you said, I follow you on social media, that you're, you're
[37:14]like, okay, you might look at this right now and it's like, you're shining, right?
[37:19]So you said, you know, but I have to work and I was in the ground and I need to appreciate
[37:24]the ground, the dirt.
[37:26]And I left my corporate job three years ago.
[37:31]One of my own, I'm like doing started this company and I'm doing it, but right now it's
[37:38]like, you know, there is that the shiny of like being more active on LinkedIn or whatever
[37:43]it is for my case.
[37:47]But I do feel a little bit like I'm like in the dirt.
[37:50]And so walk me, like if you were to think back at that time, and from the perspective
[37:59]now, what are some of the learnings like, when did the ground, when was it not healthy
[38:06]while you were there and when it was actually good and what were some of those things?
[38:15]Yeah.
[38:16]There's so much in here that I want to say.
[38:18]Let me try to be succinct though.
[38:20]So let me just say the analogy that I shared recently, I talked about the fact that like
[38:26]my life is going to look really shiny for the next couple of weeks, right?
[38:29]Like you get press and like I announced the Girl Boss podcast and like the billboard
[38:35]in times.
[38:36]A billboard.
[38:37]That's very shiny.
[38:40]This is the shiny things, right?
[38:45]If you think about flowers, like they bloom and then they go back into the ground to
[38:51]replant themselves and we enjoy that.
[38:55]We're like, okay, I'm works so excited for it to bloom again, but we know that it takes
[38:59]time and I think it's important because there's so many things I want to say I'm trying
[39:06]to like stay on track when I was in the dirt.
[39:10]I remember comparing my dirty cycle to other people's blooming cycle.
[39:16]And I'd be like, oh, that looks so beautiful.
[39:19]Your flowers so beautiful.
[39:21]I should be blooming.
[39:22]I should be blooming.
[39:23]It's like no, I now can grow from a place of stability because I took the time to grow
[39:30]the roots.
[39:31]I wrote a newsletter recently about the Chinese bamboo, because I know about Chinese
[39:36]bamboo.
[39:38]So for five years, you see nothing.
[39:42]And then in the span of a few months, it shoots over like 20 feet because it was spending
[39:52]years growing the system.
[39:55]It needs to underground so that it can shoot up.
[39:59]And I keep that.
[40:00]visual really in my head, because the longer I was staying in the dirt, I just knew I'd
[40:05]be able to shoot up faster, because I knew that I needed to do inner work, know that I
[40:12]no longer doing this for people in the back of my bus, that anything I'm doing right now
[40:21]is from 40 year old Amanda driving the bus, and because I wanted to write a good book, not
[40:28]because I'm trying to earn people's attention, I want to have interesting conversations
[40:36]to help move the conversation around powerful women forward, not because I want more followers
[40:41]on Instagram, and younger versions of me are the ones that want the followers, that want
[40:48]the accolades, and so I think it's about one acknowledging that being in the dirt
[40:54]is so purposeful, and then not comparing to other people's blooming cycles.
[41:00]And then finding when you want to check in to say, do I feel ready to kind of break
[41:06]through? Do I feel sturdy enough to break through? And you will just keep checking
[41:12]in with yourself to say, maybe not now. I'm going to let me keep planting for three
[41:15]more months or six more months and see, and then give yourself that space.
[41:21]My boss is also a CEO and overachiever, like others of us in this room. And she has
[41:29]a term that she uses called compost. So when we mess up on something or when something
[41:34]doesn't work out, she's like added to the compost bin. And then I do have like, it all
[41:38]goes into the soil, and it's all mulching together, and that makes for this really fertile
[41:44]earth. Yeah, my partner calls it an afchi, another pink growth experience.
[41:50]And he's like, I was an afchi. Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, anyone else have questions?
[41:58]I'm happy to answer questions about teenage boys. I know, raising boys. I'm going to call
[42:02]you and rears any crossover in these audiences. Yeah.
[42:19]I don't have the right to vote. I don't really expect much from it, but we've got that.
[42:26]That's strength. So look at this, this is a pink direction. So I don't want to be the boss.
[42:30]I want to be grounded in nature. He is destroying itself. Yeah.
[42:36]I want to be the one leading that chart over the clip. Yeah.
[42:41]I wonder if this space will talk to you for a character or a character?
[42:50]Or a character? It's about trying to be the boss who's trying to understand what would it look like for us
[42:56]to be institutions that support the environment that helps.
[43:02]Well, I would argue just because the characters may be called the CEO character.
[43:07]Not about being a CEO, right? It's about the version of you that is driven to make an impact.
[43:15]And to use your example, she's still wanting to make an impact, but she's doing it not in the way that we think is the path, the patriarchal path.
[43:26]I'm going to bite my way, claw my way to the leadership position, and I'm going to tell everyone what to do.
[43:34]She's doing it in her own way. And I think that that's still her CEO character leading, but she's doing it in a way that's to use your words like it's coming from a place of helping people find their grounded place in an organization, find like their purpose in their work.
[43:54]But I would still argue, like, I don't care to be the CEO of an organization anymore, but I really want to make an impact.
[44:06]And I think that that's still that character leading in my life, if that makes sense.
[44:12]I think about like a PTA, someone who really cares about their public school.
[44:18]And they're in there doing that. And then I think about I have a cousin who's a professor of statistics. She's very smart. She's engaged.
[44:25]But her CEO side comes out. She does a crop art with seeds at the Minnesota State Fair.
[44:31]And she runs the crop art. She's in charge of all that profit. And it's her passion.
[44:36]She travels around the country doing that. And it's like she pays the bills with this. And that satisfying enough.
[44:42]And then that's where her drive comes from.
[44:45]Yeah. Well, I have someone who I know who her CEO character is really like leading the Girl Scout organization for our community.
[44:54]Like that is a family.
[44:55]Oh my gosh. Yeah. She's a little weak. Yeah.
[44:58]And.
[45:00]She, that's her like purpose and an impact and she knows that she is helping the community
[45:05]in organizing things.
[45:07]And so that's not necessarily your caregiver because caregiver you're taking care
[45:12]of people.
[45:13]She knows she's like, what meetings do we need and like it's a yeah.
[45:17]So I think when by naming it CEO probably created a little bit of complexity that I could
[45:23]have avoided, but it's the idea that you are driven to make an impact.
[45:29]And for yourself financially, for the community, that gets me thinking about these women
[45:37]that run her president because of that, sorry, and we're back.
[45:43]I've got this on my own.
[45:44]Oh no, it drops my life back, maybe that there's a way because the girl scouts and it
[45:51]goes back to what he asked, which is, yeah, I think that goes, are we back?
[45:56]Yeah.
[45:57]Are we good?
[45:58]Can she be here?
[45:59]It drops my microphone.
[46:01]Okay.
[46:02]Setting these like icons for our daughters of who to look to that it doesn't have to
[46:07]just be the president United States can also be that city council member, just advocates
[46:12]for kids to have space in a park for the lady that does the crop art or the lady that
[46:17]runs across the scouts.
[46:18]It doesn't have to be like, well, there hasn't been a female president, so who's
[46:21]my daughter gonna look up to?
[46:23]It's like, well, look at this amazing person who comes into the church or the temple
[46:27]every day and organizes the donations or whatever it is.
[46:31]I love that.
[46:32]I love that.
[46:33]You can reframe what CEO looks like too, right?
[46:36]Love that.
[46:37]More of a comment, but just to add to that, I'm single no children in my 40s, all
[46:43]of my friends have children in their 40s and we've been, it's this season of thinking
[46:50]about where you're out of your career and like where do you actually want to go and
[46:53]wait?
[46:54]A second not.
[46:56]And when I talk to my friends, who have kids, honestly, and my advice to them in their
[47:03]career and even all of us is like the path of easier right now just feels right?
[47:10]It's okay.
[47:11]It's okay.
[47:12]And that's okay.
[47:13]Yeah.
[47:14]Yeah.
[47:15]And so it's to the point of this ambitious patriarchy, like is that what, why do we all have
[47:20]to lead towards this topic at all?
[47:21]Yeah.
[47:22]So that's the kind of matter.
[47:23]Yeah.
[47:24]So like it hasn't been okay for all of us to just say like just choose the easier
[47:29]shit for a while or more forever.
[47:32]Yeah.
[47:33]So I love all of that.
[47:35]And I think like what I would add to that is this in the saying like what if we don't
[47:44]all want to try to have it all again, we're kind of like adding guilt to the people who
[47:48]are trying to.
[47:49]So I'm just offering a maybe reframe in this.
[47:55]You're going to, right now, you're choosing a season for right now to drive the speed limit
[48:00]at work.
[48:01]You're going to pay the bills, you're going to get, and then you're going to prioritize
[48:04]some other parts of your life.
[48:06]But maybe in five years, you want to rev back up because you find a new spark of something
[48:11]and you want to do more, do other things or run for president or run for president.
[48:18]So yeah.
[48:24]And so I think though this all or nothing approach, like why can't we all take the easier
[48:30]route?
[48:33]I want to take the easier route next year.
[48:36]I don't want to take the easy route.
[48:38]I have ADHD.
[48:40]But next year I plan to sit back and like write a little bit more and work on the next
[48:47]book and do my, I have a full time job, like do that too.
[48:52]But I don't want to be pushing as hard as I feel like I am right now.
[48:59]And I want to feel okay with that, not that I'm, and I also don't want to declare like
[49:05]why are you all pushing because we should all be resting?
[49:08]Like, yeah.
[49:09]So I just think that it's an important nuance.
[49:11]It feels like all is the problem.
[49:13]The problem.
[49:14]Yeah.
[49:15]Because all for you and for me and for her are so different.
[49:18]And also time, like this early 40s time just feels really like so pretty tired and so
[49:25]yeah.
[49:26]Yeah.
[49:27]It's interesting.
[49:28]It's really tired.
[49:29]It's interesting because yeah, I go, so in the book, we talk, we talk, we talk, we talk, we talk
[49:39]They're, well, okay, I might take a slightly different approach here.
[49:49]So there's a book called The Second Mountain with David Brooks.
[49:53]And if you haven't read it, it's super powerful.
[49:55]The first mountain's all about like, like, individual.
[50:00]success. It's about the titles and the salary and all that. And then the second you go through
[50:05]this kind of valley of discontentment. And then you're like, what is the second mountain that I'm
[50:10]going to climb? So I talk about that in this book in reference to each of your characters. Your
[50:16]caregiver character will go through a second mountain. Like, even without kids, we are taking
[50:22]pair of aging parents. Yes. Your partner character will go through two different mountains. Some
[50:28]of us will get divorced. Some people will have to re-choose their person. Esther Burrell talks
[50:35]about that. Your CEO character goes through two different mountains. I'm not driven by the same
[50:41]things in my first half of my career that I am for my second. But I'm not slowing down. But they are
[50:47]driven. The gasoline that's fueling me is very different. So I think it's important that like, what I
[50:56]hear is that you're kind of like in that valley right now, trying to figure out and reconnect with
[51:02]what the next climb is going to be about for your characters. Which is okay. Also, sometimes survival
[51:08]is all. It's all. Right. Is your each year, visualizing what your year looks like? Or the jiggering
[51:17]the percentage of each of your characters? That's the larger check-in. I do a stove top exercise,
[51:25]which is one of these, every month. So I will literally, at the beginning of every month,
[51:32]I have a part of my time blocked off. It's usually because with the kids in its craziness,
[51:37]it's usually in the morning with coffee outside, away from everything. And I draw a five-burner stove
[51:45]top. And I look at the 10 characters. And I say, who's getting the big two on the front?
[51:50]Who's getting the smaller two in the back? And who's off the stove top entirely? And what that helps
[51:56]me do is look back over the last couple of months. If the same two are on the front burners and the
[52:03]same three are on the back burners and the same ones are on the like, they're going to burn out,
[52:09]they're going to never get cooked. These guys are getting cold. What do I need to do? And so it's just
[52:16]a monthly exercise that I do for myself. And it also allows me to communicate and create expectations.
[52:25]My partner knows right now that he's on the back burner. He does. And my kids know that they're on
[52:36]the back burner because I've communicated it to them. And I only have 20% to give. So when I'm with my
[52:43]kids, like if you saw my Instagram this past weekend, it was like we were carbon pumpkins, we were
[52:47]doing the things, all the things. But it's not only about communicating it to the other people in
[52:54]your life, but more so so that you don't feel guilty. Like I had one weekend with my friends
[53:02]for my birthday in October. And then I'm probably not going to see everybody until like February
[53:06]the wedding. Like everybody knows I'm in a sprint right now. And so if I don't respond to the text
[53:12]messages and I don't like comment or remember somebody's birthday, like hopefully there's some
[53:17]grace because I've communicated, hey, I'm heads down on this thing. I'm prioritizing this. And I'll come
[53:23]back out here. So that's that helps me. So when you guys were talking about, um, you know, being
[53:31]so tired in our 40s, I really don't totally get it. No, I'm with you. But also, I've identified
[53:39]got a lot of it external to me right now. Like it is my age or it is where I, all the work I've
[53:44]done over the years, didn't drive and burned out and things like that. But the social environment
[53:50]and toxicity that get that we're absorbing and constantly. I'm just curious if there's any sort of
[53:57]take on that on how the characters or which is characters best to like deal with the news headline
[54:04]or things that you don't necessarily have control over to change, but you want to change, you know,
[54:11]all the whole thing. I'm going to channel my therapist for a second. You can't change the headlines,
[54:16]but you can change how much you see them. That's true. And I have, I'm a flamingo a lot of times,
[54:23]but it's still so thin. And also, I think as I there's a sense of guilt about not being the change
[54:29]you want to see in the world because it's, yeah. Okay, so I'll share what I've had to help myself
[54:35]because the phrase I keep saying to myself, if I can change, if I can't change the whole world,
[54:42]I'll change one world. And that I keep, I wake up every day and I'm like, how can I make one person's
[54:48]world better this morning? There was a very old lady. She couldn't find where she was going. And I was
[54:53]like, I'm going to, I know I'm super busy right now, but I'm going to take the extra 20 minutes
[54:58]and I'm going to walk her to where she's going.
[55:00]like it's like we can't fight every battle so how can we just continue to try to
[55:08]like change one world at a time and and then I try to protect my brain as much as
[55:15]humanly possible. Also a more more replacement therapy.
[55:22]That's great. And a great palette. Yeah.
[55:26]I have a question.
[55:28]Hey, how did you come up with the principal three and was I care to see you and partner?
[55:34]And then also like what happens if the range there? Like if your
[55:38]primary never changes because that's what's tied to your livelihood.
[55:43]Like CEO is not just CEO, but it's probably like where money
[55:47]flows through from. Yeah. Like what if that has to say primary because you don't have, you know, your
[55:53]parents are pretty sure you're living on your own. You're seeing like whatever.
[55:57]Like how does that play?
[55:58]So I think this is a great question because I talk about after I sold my company,
[56:04]I didn't make a dollar in the sale as an equity deal and I was still dealing with
[56:09]divorced it and yet I still needed to create that space for those other versions of myself.
[56:15]So I call it driving the speed limit. I'm still working.
[56:20]I'm still doing my job, but we all know the difference between going
[56:25]above and beyond versus doing the job.
[56:29]And for me, it was about moving the CEO over.
[56:34]And I put in the middle, I put partner.
[56:39]I wanted to date with intentionality.
[56:41]I wanted to try to find somebody that I could do life with.
[56:44]And that meant I needed to do work on myself.
[56:47]It wasn't just about like more time for dating.
[56:50]It was like I needed to do some deep healing and go deeper on that stuff.
[56:55]So that I could be open like emotionally to that.
[56:59]So it's not about quitting your job so that you can go and travel the world.
[57:06]Most of us can't do that.
[57:09]But it is about acknowledging where your boundaries are with the work.
[57:14]And how do you kind of not fall into those urgency significance traps.
[57:19]So you can create a little bit more space.
[57:21]Work, but yourself.
[57:22]I want to focus on, I don't know.
[57:25]You put it as one of the back burner.
[57:27]But the main one is like 30% and the other ones are like, you know what I mean?
[57:30]Like what did you start fucking up at work because of your other ranges?
[57:35]Then you, yeah, obviously you do have to rearrange.
[57:39]But my, I hope as you read through the book,
[57:43]you start to see this like this 20% mentality start to build in where it's like,
[57:49]this isn't about laying on the couch for four hours because your lazy girl is on the front.
[57:54]It's middle burner.
[57:56]It's like, no, it's just about when you've carved out the time for your lazy girl.
[58:01]Do you actually allow her to fully show up?
[58:04]Or do you allow the caregiver to hijack or the social light to hijack?
[58:09]Or the CEO to hijack?
[58:12]Are you actually saying, I need to rest this month?
[58:16]And for two hours a night, what does emotional rest?
[58:19]Does sensory rest?
[58:21]Like what does it actually look like?
[58:22]And can I guard that time?
[58:25]Seems like you're saying that when I'm watching TV,
[58:27]I shouldn't be categorizing expenses in QuickBooks.
[58:32]It depends on which, what you're intention is for that night.
[58:36]If you're CEO, that's going to help me chill out to have that done.
[58:39]Well, one of the biggest things I think's hardest for women specifically is to
[58:46]permission to create hierarchy.
[58:49]What is actually important in that moment is the CEO actually leading
[58:55]and you just have the TV on to be around because you just wanted to switch up from your desk.
[59:00]Okay, yeah, totally fine.
[59:02]But if you actually are sitting on the couch because you want your lazy girl to be leaving
[59:08]and you're letting the CEO hijack, you've not created the hire.
[59:13]Intention.
[59:14]And that's another example.
[59:17]When I work from home on a day, my kids don't have school.
[59:22]Okay.
[59:23]It was like, oh, yeah.
[59:25]I have to create hierarchy every single hour.
[59:29]For this hour, caregiver is the top.
[59:33]I'm not doing work well.
[59:34]I'm going to like, okay, I'm trying to send the slack, whatever,
[59:37]but I'm in caregiver mode.
[59:39]For the next hour, CEOs on the front burner, the TVs on, the doors locked.
[59:44]I've thrown granola bars at everyone.
[59:47]And I'm going to do work.
[59:49]Hierarchy.
[59:50]And the hierarchy when you allow yourself to create that intention in your head,
[59:55]it removes the guilt.
[59:57]For the next hour, the kids are going to watch TV.
[59:59]They're going to eat granola.
[60:00]bars and I'm okay with that. But then the next time I'm going to re-evaluate and say, okay,
[60:04]we're going to shift it back. I'm going to be a good mom for the next hour. And so it's just
[60:08]permission to create hierarchy and then remove the guilt. Yeah. I like that.
[60:13]As a second part, how did you take those three? Oh, that's from coaching a lot of ambitious
[60:18]women. And I do audits on their calendar and how they're spending their time. And it's those three.
[60:25]Do you think some of that is societal pressure? Like for me, it's like the whole partner's
[60:29]thing. Like that would never be on my top three. And that's just where I've been. Yeah.
[60:33]Where I've been. So when you read the book, you'll, the entire opening of that chapter is
[60:38]some of you may never see some of these characters. And that's okay. And it's just about
[60:45]from my coaching, that's what's taking up the majority of some women's life. But it's totally okay that
[60:54]some people may never have kids, but your caregiver character. I know women who don't have kids
[61:02]who spend so much time taking care of their friends. They know everybody's birthday. They know
[61:07]their kids, their friends, kids' birthdays. They're showing up at every birthday party.
[61:12]They're planning everybody's bachelor at parties. That's your caregiver character. You're taking
[61:18]care of others because you derive from the film from it. All of that. Yeah. Yeah. I think they'd
[61:30]like to wrap it. I know. I see. I'm forgetting the eye. Okay. Thank you guys so much for coming. I
[61:36]appreciate you all. And we are signing if anyone needs anything. Yeah.
[61:48]Thank you. Okay. Did you see my daughter sit down there for a minute? I did. Oh, that