Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, and welcome to the best ever you show.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Elizabeth here with new author Amber wardel
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great?
Speaker 1: How are you good? Thank you? Thank you for being
Speaker 1: here teaching us all about your new book. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you have a copy or not with you,
Speaker 1: but I'll just tell everybody the copy of There you go,
Speaker 1: I see you, How I do.
Speaker 3: I'm either.
Speaker 1: It's got potato chips on the cover, probably one of
Speaker 1: the first books ever to have potato chips on the cover.
Speaker 1: I was going to sit here and like eat Dorito's
Speaker 1: the whole time I was talking to you. But help
Speaker 1: beyond beyond self care potato chips. We're going to learn
Speaker 1: about why you titled it that here. But welcome, Welcome, welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. It's it's a
Speaker 3: real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What's it like being a new author.
Speaker 2: It's been really exciting, as you know, It's like it's
Speaker 2: it's a bunch of emotions all tied up together. And
Speaker 2: I was just reflecting on this this morning, that you know,
Speaker 2: this book, I finished writing it almost two years ago,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I'm almost a completely different person,
Speaker 2: Like I said a few ambers ago wrote this, and
Speaker 2: so it's interesting though. It's really cool to get to
Speaker 2: re experience the book now, like as it's coming out,
Speaker 2: you know that feeling of like you're falling back in
Speaker 2: love with it because it's finally coming out.
Speaker 3: So that's been really cool. I've been enjoying that process.
Speaker 1: It takes a while for books to come out, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: From when you sign that contract. What's that moment? Like,
Speaker 1: what was that like for You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I got a book deal?
Speaker 2: Okay, oh man, it was really great. Do you mind
Speaker 2: if I tell a little story about my agent first?
Speaker 1: Please tell everything.
Speaker 2: So when I was first shopping around looking for an agent,
Speaker 2: I had a completely different book than this one. It
Speaker 2: was a book about my miscarriages and spiritual warfare and
Speaker 2: kind of my journey through my face through that. And
Speaker 2: so I was shopping that book around and the agent
Speaker 2: that I wanted, her name was Rachelle Gardner. She was
Speaker 2: my top choice, and she got back to me almost
Speaker 2: immediately and she was like it's a no.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, do you love that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? She was like it's a no, but do you
Speaker 2: have time for a phone call? I would really love
Speaker 2: to talk to you. And I was like, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: never never not take an opportunity. So I got on
Speaker 2: the phone with her and she's like, listen, I actually
Speaker 2: follow you on TikTok, and I love your voice, I
Speaker 2: love your message. I love the things that you talk
Speaker 2: about on your platform which have nothing to do with
Speaker 2: this book you're trying to publish.
Speaker 3: And so she said, do you.
Speaker 2: Have any ideas that might be more aligned with what
Speaker 2: you talk about on your platforms, because I think I would,
Speaker 2: I would want to represent that. So it was the
Speaker 2: next day I pitched self Care Potato Chips to her
Speaker 2: and she said, yes, yes, I want it, and so
Speaker 2: she signed me and then, you know, I got it
Speaker 2: written within about six months, and we pitched it and
Speaker 2: when HCI picked it up, that was probably one of
Speaker 2: the best days of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have that feeling too, like this is just
Speaker 1: a great life, the best day of your life. How
Speaker 1: to explain, right.
Speaker 2: But man, you I've had books on best seller lists
Speaker 2: like I can't even imagine what that's like.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I switched though, you know, I switched
Speaker 1: over from Hayhouse to HCI, and I wasn't sure when
Speaker 1: I got my agent, you know, through that process, if
Speaker 1: anybody was going to pick me up either or take
Speaker 1: my ideas or switch them or do whatever. So I
Speaker 1: get the feeling it's get I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's it's tricky out there, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think this totally aligns with who you.
Speaker 1: I've been watching you on TikTok and now Instagram and
Speaker 1: seeing your bright, smiley face every day and listening to
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and you know, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I think I'm probably way older than you. I'm I
Speaker 1: just turned fifty five, and I relate. And it's cool
Speaker 1: because I think you have a message that is transcending
Speaker 1: all ages and spaces and places and things like that.
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty happy to have you on Best every
Speaker 1: year because I know, I know that you're aware of that,
Speaker 1: and you're not just peered toward people your age, you know,
Speaker 1: some of us. I look back and I was reading
Speaker 1: your book. I'm like, and they're done that, and they're
Speaker 1: done that, and they're done that. A little bit I
Speaker 1: asked my husband, like, how do I go onto this
Speaker 1: show without a ben? They're done that attitude. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that. I want to hear what you
Speaker 1: have to say because I completely relate to you, though.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know that, but I don't
Speaker 1: have a been there, done that. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that you're doing that I haven't done, you know,
Speaker 1: a whole There are almost a million people following you
Speaker 1: on TikTok right now listening to your navigating your life
Speaker 1: with children, your husband, you're you know, you're an author,
Speaker 1: you have your I want to say therapist. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's the exact right word, but you know
Speaker 1: it's actually doctor. Yes, there's a PhD that goes with
Speaker 1: you as well here in other things. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just amazing.
Speaker 2: So when I say I'm sorry, can I say I
Speaker 2: appreciate that so much because you know, so I'm going
Speaker 2: to be forty in January. My husband is fifteen years
Speaker 2: older than me, so he's in his fifties. And when
Speaker 2: I was writing the book, I very much have this
Speaker 2: millennial mindset, right, I'm like, oh, I identify as a millennial,
Speaker 2: and so when I was writing a book, it's very
Speaker 2: much geared toward millennial women, and even on the back
Speaker 2: cover copy. It talks about, you know, millennial women and
Speaker 2: the publicists that I'm working with. We had a phone
Speaker 2: call the other day and she was like, she's your agent.
Speaker 2: She said, why are you Why are you positioning this
Speaker 2: towards millennials? And I said, well, because I am one,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I'm probably not going to be
Speaker 2: super relatable to other people. And she said, I resonate
Speaker 2: with this, and that meant so much to me because
Speaker 2: my next project that I'm working on is called Brave
Speaker 2: Beyond Thirty, and I'm talking about what it's like navigating
Speaker 2: getting older, aging out of the male gaze and the
Speaker 2: invisibility that seems to come with that, and how getting
Speaker 2: older is this strange paradox of on the one hand,
Speaker 2: feeling more confident and and knowing yourself better than you
Speaker 2: ever have, and on the other hand, dealing with some
Speaker 2: confidence issues that are imposed on you by the world
Speaker 2: that aren't even yours.
Speaker 3: And so it means a lot.
Speaker 1: Like clearly into something that the mail case is still there,
Speaker 1: the males are just a little older, just butting you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go away. It's a different generation just ages
Speaker 1: right on with you. For some reason. It's like wow,
Speaker 1: any but as a human being who's taken. You know,
Speaker 1: I have this chapter in one of my books somewhere.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I wrote it exactly, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm taking phone calls in my walk in closet. The
Speaker 1: kids are like two, four, six, and eight, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just need a second, you know kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And it's it's that kind of you know, we're navigating
Speaker 1: that with with tiny children. I was reading. I was
Speaker 1: reading something where I think it's maybe the end of
Speaker 1: your book. Actually, not to give it away everybody, but
Speaker 1: we'll go there spoiler alert, but yeah, there's a book.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a whole chapter, whole and I'm going
Speaker 1: to forgive myself in this moment because here's what I
Speaker 1: just did. I have a lot of those moments, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, my kids are twenty, they're twenty. How old
Speaker 1: are they this year? They're twenty three, twenty five, twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and twenty nine now, all with their master's degrees. We've
Speaker 1: got you know, girlfriends and fiances and all this stuff happening,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's just different. But you still at
Speaker 1: moments you know, they'll teach you something or you know
Speaker 1: it's a constant learning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, yeah, oh for sure.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking I'm looking forward to those years. You know,
Speaker 2: there's this funny it's it's weird in motherhood spaces because
Speaker 2: sometimes you see this almost like a split between moms
Speaker 2: of older kids and moms of younger kids, and there's
Speaker 2: this weird sense of competition of who has it harder,
Speaker 2: and it's like, I think it's probably all hard. I
Speaker 2: think it's probably all hard. It's just a different hard.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm going to very much appre my
Speaker 2: kids are six and eight. I'm going to very much
Speaker 2: appreciate them being a little bit older and not as
Speaker 2: dependent on me for everything. And it's going to be
Speaker 2: really hard navigating their relationships and their heartaches and them
Speaker 2: driving away for the first.
Speaker 3: Time, and like all these things.
Speaker 2: It's just it's it's hard, and it comes with it's
Speaker 2: it's it comes with so much self doubt and so much.
Speaker 1: There's no manual for it. You're navigating as you go
Speaker 1: through the best that you can do with what to me,
Speaker 1: like with what your experiences are to that date or
Speaker 1: what you don't want to repeat. Yeah, sort of, But
Speaker 1: we had a block party this past weekend. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say we're the grandparents on the block because we
Speaker 1: don't have any grandkids yet, but we're one of the
Speaker 1: older We've been here for twenty one years and the
Speaker 1: families have turned over. So there were lots of tiny
Speaker 1: kids running around. There's an older couple, there's us, there's
Speaker 1: another older couple. But the kid you know. So everybody
Speaker 1: was you know, thirty on up to eighty, and we
Speaker 1: were all sitting around in a circle with fire with
Speaker 1: everybody's kids or grandkids running around in the dark, plane
Speaker 1: flashlight tag and all this stuff, and everybody could relate
Speaker 1: to all of the different things that were going on
Speaker 1: right now, you know, and they were asking, well, where
Speaker 1: are your kids anyway, Like, well, one's asleep avoiding this party.
Speaker 1: Ones in Germany, ones you know here there, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But you know, we heated the
Speaker 1: pool up to like ninety almost and had all the
Speaker 1: kids over for a pool party, and it was so
Speaker 1: much fun to have little kids. So even when you
Speaker 1: get older, you missed the little kids when you're younger.
Speaker 1: When you're younger, you're like, gosh, I wish they'd grow up.
Speaker 1: Good luck. Yeah, finding that you just have to almost
Speaker 1: I keep thinking, you just have to almost enjoy every moment.
Speaker 1: And that didn't dawn on me though, until I dropped
Speaker 1: the first one off at college. The first one off
Speaker 1: at college and there were three younger ones. I went, oh,
Speaker 1: did I do this all? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I had a home like a That was then I
Speaker 1: wrote the Change Guidebook and I talked about how he
Speaker 1: didn't do his sheets for the year and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But I really had a hiccup right here, going did
Speaker 1: I do everything? Okay? Did I fail this child? Have
Speaker 1: I been a horrible mother? Am I? Okay? Am I? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah?
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you do that in your book though.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, And that's what I wanted to bring
Speaker 2: that through in the book to talk about it, particularly
Speaker 2: in the chapters on motherhood that, like, like you said,
Speaker 2: there is no manual, there is so much pressure to
Speaker 2: be a perfect parent, to do it all the right way,
Speaker 2: and what is right is constantly changing. So oh, we're
Speaker 2: all okay, we're all supposed to be gentle parenting. Oh no,
Speaker 2: now there's some research that gentle parenting actually has some
Speaker 2: negative consequences, and we've got to move back this way
Speaker 2: and you're trying to navigate all of that. At the
Speaker 2: end of the day, you're doing fine. You know, you're
Speaker 2: just doing fine. And the self forgiveness, the self compassion
Speaker 2: is so important because you're never going to do it perfectly,
Speaker 2: so you just have to trust yourself to do the
Speaker 2: best with what you know and learn on your feet.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, I think I long winded that I
Speaker 1: really would have liked to have had this book when
Speaker 1: my kids were smaller, because I would have felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not alone in all of these different moments of
Speaker 1: insecurity and unsure with my you know, just you made
Speaker 1: up words and I just probably made some up to
Speaker 1: you know, you're just unsure of yourself, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's hard and everybody's different and every family
Speaker 1: is different, and there's no one size fits all way
Speaker 1: to parent kids or be a parent, or be married
Speaker 1: or anything. So tell me about the chip thing. Why
Speaker 1: are their potato chips on this book? And what does
Speaker 1: beyond self care potato chips mean?
Speaker 2: Okay, so this was this actually came from my therapist. Oh.
Speaker 3: I love my therapist.
Speaker 2: I've been with him for three or four years now,
Speaker 2: and I went to him because we had had a
Speaker 2: family crisis and I had sought him out to get
Speaker 2: help for this family member, and then that family member
Speaker 2: declined the help. And so while I'm in contact with
Speaker 2: this therapist and now this family member is declining the help,
Speaker 2: I was like, can I come, Can I just can
Speaker 2: I take that appointment?
Speaker 3: And he was like yeah, sure, So I.
Speaker 2: Came and and he's gotten me through a lot, through
Speaker 2: my separation from my husband and then through our reconciliation
Speaker 2: and doing my inner child work and all like that.
Speaker 2: But there was a day where I was sitting, you know,
Speaker 2: sitting there in therapy with him, and he said, Amber,
Speaker 2: you can't get full on self care potato chips.
Speaker 3: And I was like, say that again, and he.
Speaker 2: Said, you know, he said, you know, you keep looking
Speaker 2: for these little these little morsels of things that are
Speaker 2: going to fill you up, things that you think will
Speaker 2: make you feel good, but they're not going to because
Speaker 2: you're not actually taking care of yourself. You know, you're
Speaker 2: putting on the veneer of taking care of yourself. You're
Speaker 2: you know, you're you're you put on makeup every day,
Speaker 2: you shower every day, you you know, go on walks,
Speaker 2: you exercise, and all like that, and that's all great.
Speaker 2: He was like, that's it's not to minimize those things,
Speaker 2: but doing those things without going deeper, doing things that
Speaker 2: are hard, you know, learning how to do battle with
Speaker 2: your inner demons, heal your inner child, set your boundaries,
Speaker 2: communicate your needs. Those are actual. That's self care, that's
Speaker 2: the real self care. And it had rolled off of
Speaker 2: his tongue and I asked him. I was like, did
Speaker 2: you just is that? Is that something that y'all talk
Speaker 2: about in therapy spaces?
Speaker 3: Is that a term?
Speaker 2: And he said no, I just kind of came up
Speaker 2: with it. So as I was thinking of the concept
Speaker 2: for the book, that phrase just kept coming to my mind,
Speaker 2: and so I reached out to my therapist and I said,
Speaker 2: would you mind if I use this for the title
Speaker 2: of my book and he was like, yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 2: that would be amazing. So I initially titled it just
Speaker 2: self care potato Chips, and everyone was like, you got
Speaker 2: to put something in there in front of that so
Speaker 2: that people don't think you're advocating for the self care
Speaker 2: potato chip. So then it became beyond self care potato chips.
Speaker 2: But the metaphor is essentially like you can keep going
Speaker 2: to the closet and pulling out potato chips, and you
Speaker 2: will eat that entire bag and you'll be done, and
Speaker 2: you'll feel bloated, and maybe you'll feel a little bit
Speaker 2: emotionally better because you just ate this food that just
Speaker 2: feels good. But you're going to be hungry again in
Speaker 2: just less than an hour. Then you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: go feed yourself again, and you're not actually nourishing anything.
Speaker 2: It's just empty calories. And so what I talk about
Speaker 2: in the book is what nourishing self care is self care.
Speaker 2: Potato chips are fine, and they're good, but you gotta
Speaker 2: do the You got to get the casse role in
Speaker 2: there too.
Speaker 1: The vitamins with the chips. Yeah, so what what does
Speaker 1: that mean? What did what did you put in the
Speaker 1: book that is going to teach us to actually self care?
Speaker 1: Because you know, I think people do think that, just
Speaker 1: like with a gratitude journal, people write five things they're
Speaker 1: grateful for and be done with it and walk away
Speaker 1: and things like that. But I like the I like
Speaker 1: this type of stuff on autopilot, so it becomes who
Speaker 1: you are as a method of how you operate. You
Speaker 1: learn it and learn it and learn it and learn it,
Speaker 1: and then you are like, Okay, this is who I am,
Speaker 1: this is the I am. But it's tough to get there,
Speaker 1: isn't it, especially with the whole boundary thing and saying
Speaker 1: what you really want without making somebody else mad or
Speaker 1: feel bad or you feel bad or you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I thought it was interesting. I was watching one
Speaker 2: of your tiktoks and you you were talking about your
Speaker 2: the four four four newsletter, and you were you spoke
Speaker 2: about how there's four things for self, four things for humanity,
Speaker 2: four journal prompts, and four affirmations, and you said in
Speaker 2: the middle of that, you said, I know some of
Speaker 2: you guys say everything I talk about is just puppies
Speaker 2: and rainbows. So if you want, you can journal about
Speaker 2: something you know, negative if you want, But this is positive.
Speaker 2: And I just was so struck by that, because I
Speaker 2: do think people want to kind of they want to
Speaker 2: vilify growth mindset and positive mindset. It seems like nobody
Speaker 2: likes a happy person in the same way that they say,
Speaker 2: like everyone everyone loves a baby and hates an old man.
Speaker 2: In some ways, when I was getting the most reach
Speaker 2: and views on my platform was when I was at
Speaker 2: my absolute lowest. Right, People love watching someone going through
Speaker 2: a hard time, and they love you talking about going
Speaker 2: through a hard time, and they love talking about their
Speaker 2: hard times. And when you start doing the work the
Speaker 2: same the work that you're talking about in your literature
Speaker 2: and what I talk about in my book.
Speaker 3: You start to evolve. You start to.
Speaker 2: Realize I don't have to think that everything is puppy
Speaker 2: dogs and rainbows. I'm allowed to say this just sucks. However, yeah,
Speaker 2: there is something that is useful and good about saying Okay,
Speaker 2: yes this can suck. And also what lessons can I
Speaker 2: learn from this? You talk about the oh what do
Speaker 2: you call it? It's not it's not the gratitude reframe.
Speaker 2: It's the gratitude flip flip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where it's where it's not like, oh, I have
Speaker 1: to go do that. I gotta go. I have to
Speaker 1: go pick up the kids from school or whatever. It's
Speaker 1: in my book, but your frame everything is like I get.
Speaker 3: To I get to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just it's like a little bit of mind
Speaker 1: trickery with I really kind of mean that, though, because
Speaker 1: if you stay down all the time talking about all
Speaker 1: your problems and all your everything and whoa boo is
Speaker 1: me and all this stuff, you're going to stay there.
Speaker 1: And it's really helpful to shift people to recognize all
Speaker 1: of that, go through it, talk about it, deal with it,
Speaker 1: and all those things. But to have the element of
Speaker 1: moving forward is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I feel like sometimes people want to label
Speaker 2: that incorrectly, label that as toxic positivity, and they don't
Speaker 2: understand that that's not what that word actually means.
Speaker 3: But you do, you can get caught in this.
Speaker 2: It can become difficult talking about change and growth, about spirituality,
Speaker 2: about self care because sometimes people want to say, oh,
Speaker 2: this is just all puppy dogs and rainbows. And so
Speaker 2: my book is trying really hard to bring some balance
Speaker 2: to the conversation and say, like, hey, it's we should
Speaker 2: talk about the hard stuff. And the book primarily talks
Speaker 2: about the hard stuff, but let's also remember that through
Speaker 2: all the hard stuff there are learnings, and again abuse
Speaker 2: neglect those things. We don't have to, we don't have
Speaker 2: to try to pretend like there's a learning opportunity there.
Speaker 2: We can set those aside. But I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: just the everyday challenges and woes that we go through
Speaker 2: that are so painful, that hurts so deep. There is
Speaker 2: a way to look at those and go, how can
Speaker 2: I grow from this? How can I evolve?
Speaker 3: What can I learn?
Speaker 2: How can I be and do better from this? And
Speaker 2: that's not toxic, that's actually incredibly healthy, and that's what
Speaker 2: we should be doing. And so the book, the book
Speaker 2: really goes into here's the hard stuff we have to do,
Speaker 2: and here's how we sort of not just reframe it,
Speaker 2: but go a step further and try to turn it
Speaker 2: into something like a practical approach.
Speaker 1: Now, when you talk about other people in your book,
Speaker 1: let's just say your husband for a minute, Charlie, Right, yes,
Speaker 1: did you have to say, look, I'm going to write about.
Speaker 2: You, don't. I don't feel like that was ever a
Speaker 2: very specific conversation we had. I never came to him
Speaker 2: and was like, is it okay if I share these stories?
Speaker 2: But it was him who encouraged me to write the book.
Speaker 2: And you know, as we navigated our separation and then
Speaker 2: our reconciliation, he was the one who was like, we
Speaker 2: have this great testimony and I want you to share.
Speaker 2: He was like, you can be honest, you can talk
Speaker 2: about the nitty gritty stuff. And we hope to one
Speaker 2: day write a book together about this, you know, about
Speaker 2: the process of what we've been through as a couple,
Speaker 2: both being in therapy and all like that. So no,
Speaker 2: I do know that he was totally on board, but
Speaker 2: there was never like a this is okay.
Speaker 1: But because I remember when I first started writing, what
Speaker 1: a family member who shall go on name name said,
Speaker 1: what are you going to write about me? And I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's presumptuous. In the number of things, I'm probably not
Speaker 1: going to number one. And second there's you know, nothing
Speaker 1: in here about you, so sorry to disappoint. But how
Speaker 1: people do that, It's like, what are you going to
Speaker 1: write about me? And then they get all worried. It's like, relax,
Speaker 1: that's onny.
Speaker 2: I mean I was anxious because I talk about my
Speaker 2: upbringing a little bit. So I was nervous talking about
Speaker 2: my parents. Yea, which is hard, right, because there's a
Speaker 2: book that I really love and it's it's called Adult
Speaker 2: Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and it talks about in
Speaker 2: there that you can speak about your parents and ways
Speaker 2: that you wish your upbringing was different without betraying your parents.
Speaker 2: It's not betraying them to talk about how you wish
Speaker 2: things were different. So in the book, you know, I
Speaker 2: did mention certain things about my about my upbringing, and
Speaker 2: I always tried to make sure that I get my
Speaker 2: parents are both still living, right, so I want them
Speaker 2: to feel like they can hand this to their friends
Speaker 2: and say, read this and feel proud of it, and
Speaker 2: have nothing being there that they're ashamed of. And so
Speaker 2: I but I was a little scared of a few
Speaker 2: chapters in there where I speak about them specifically.
Speaker 3: But they've both read.
Speaker 2: It and they were really happy and really supportive, and
Speaker 2: so that that was the only that was the only
Speaker 2: part that I was like a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got my mom and dad my
Speaker 1: books too. But yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My father was a stroke survivor for from twentousand and
Speaker 1: four to twenty eighteen. My mother was a primary caregiver
Speaker 1: for all of those years, and we had a we
Speaker 1: had a pretty cool childhood. Actually there are I'm in
Speaker 1: the middle of eleven kids. Oh it was a huge family.
Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1: Family. So but yeah, so you could see the question, now,
Speaker 1: what are you going to write about us?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, don't.
Speaker 1: Worry, No, no, spill in the beans. It's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I have so many questions for you here
Speaker 1: from balancing marriage and motherhood, family, friendship, you know, all
Speaker 1: the things that are in the book about different aspects
Speaker 1: of your life. Is there one area in there where
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, I really wish somebody would pick
Speaker 1: this book up and read this chapter or this chapter,
Speaker 1: this section very nice, chairs squeaky, I will say, you know,
Speaker 1: talking to you by the way.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I know it's great that I feel the same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the book has broken into several sections. There's
Speaker 2: self care in our romantic relationships, our friendships, our families
Speaker 2: so like the broader family, uh, in the workplace, in
Speaker 2: our communication, and in our mental health. And I feel
Speaker 2: like that the one that I think is definitely relatable
Speaker 2: to everyone because not everyone has had a spouse or
Speaker 2: even had a big family, or even had a job,
Speaker 2: but everyone has had a friend and everyone has had
Speaker 2: good friends and bad friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I really love that section of the book because
Speaker 2: it leads off with this chapter called Crabs in a Bucket,
Speaker 2: and it's based on crab theory, and it's this concept
Speaker 2: that if you put a whole bunch of crabs inside
Speaker 2: of a bucket. There will be some who stay at
Speaker 2: the bottom and some who attempt to climb out to safety.
Speaker 2: But rather than allowing some of the crabs to get out,
Speaker 2: what the other crabs will do is reach up and
Speaker 2: yank them back down, so that although some of the
Speaker 2: crabs could have gotten out and survived, they all end
Speaker 2: up crushed and perishing at the bottom of the bucket.
Speaker 2: And I lead with that chapter because I think a
Speaker 2: lot of us experience that in our friendships. We've all
Speaker 2: had those people who came along claiming to be our friends,
Speaker 2: who like maybe could have even been our frenemies, people
Speaker 2: who pretended to kind of be on our side. And
Speaker 2: you know, everyone loves an underdog, right, Everyone loves you
Speaker 2: when you're down, like I just said, everyone loves when
Speaker 2: you're saying that you're going to write a book, or
Speaker 2: saying you're.
Speaker 3: Going to start a business.
Speaker 2: But when you actually do it, when you actually get
Speaker 2: your book deal, or when you actually start making money
Speaker 2: in your business or whatever it may be, you find
Speaker 2: there are some friends who suddenly aren't very supportive, who
Speaker 2: suddenly are wanting to pull you back down.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And so that chapter speaks about crab theory and what
Speaker 2: that's like, and then I go into friendship breakups and
Speaker 2: sometimes you're being the one broken up with and sometimes
Speaker 2: you're the one doing the breakup, and some practical tools
Speaker 2: for navigating that. And then the final chapter in that
Speaker 2: section is called at the Table, and it's about getting
Speaker 2: the right You speak a lot about having the right
Speaker 2: mentors and guides, because yeah, because anything anything we do, success, happiness, spirituality,
Speaker 2: none of that happens in a vacuum. And it's so
Speaker 2: important that you have the right people at the table.
Speaker 2: And so I go into kind of finding the right
Speaker 2: people for the table and how you need to be
Speaker 2: looking for safety, for communication, for mutual positive regard, and
Speaker 2: if you're not getting those things, then these people don't
Speaker 2: belong at your table.
Speaker 1: I love that whole section, and I'm going to take
Speaker 1: it a step further and have you talk about this,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole chapter in there about your business,
Speaker 1: because you had a different business of a baby business before,
Speaker 1: and exactly what happened to you has happened to me
Speaker 1: twice now through owning best Ever you how many time
Speaker 1: I could write a whole book about all the crap
Speaker 1: that I've endured with owning Best Ever You. And I
Speaker 1: don't go on TikTok and talk about it or go
Speaker 1: on Instagram and talk talk about it very much. But
Speaker 1: I'm starting to think, you know, maybe I should, because
Speaker 1: you know, I've been copied. I've been you know. I
Speaker 1: thought it had somebody come in here and help me,
Speaker 1: like actually, like oh I want to help you and
Speaker 1: do everything, and they turn around and open up the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. I'm like, wait a minute, you just
Speaker 1: took and I feel I felt like such a like
Speaker 1: an idiot at moments, like so naive and so like
Speaker 1: like almost like heart on your sleeve, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to tough en up to be you know, scary
Speaker 1: scared of people. You know this, I'm not that. I'm
Speaker 1: not that human, and I'm still the same. People can
Speaker 1: come in and say, hey, do you want to help me,
Speaker 1: and I'll be like sure, you know kind of thing
Speaker 1: and and and be oblivious to what's happened before. But
Speaker 1: I even had one person who I read so I
Speaker 1: quit this job in the financial services industry started Best
Speaker 1: Ever You. This is in my books and things like that,
Speaker 1: But I was into it probably a month and I
Speaker 1: got this phone call and this guy goes, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I own everything all the domains that are best, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be needing you to just sign over best
Speaker 1: ever you to me, best ever you dot Com to me.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't know who you are. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: I own everything best on the Internet. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: really don't give a shit. I don't care no kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I'm like, you could own everything and you
Speaker 1: know and whatever, and I don't care. I registered that
Speaker 1: to me. It's my business idea. I'm sorry, it's mine.
Speaker 1: And I just completely pissed him off. He started screaming
Speaker 1: at me, and he goes, listen, lady, you are nothing
Speaker 1: but a washed up forty year old soccer mom who's
Speaker 1: never gonna make it, never gonna do anything, and all
Speaker 1: the things you're thinking of are never gonna happen. And
Speaker 1: then he just paused. I wish I would have said
Speaker 1: something way more intel. It's one of those moments where
Speaker 1: you I go, bag, oh, yeah, well, you know anyway,
Speaker 1: what I said was this. I said, oh, yeah, well
Speaker 1: my kids never played soccer. Just I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think I think that was a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: What dick, you know kind of you know, sorry I
Speaker 1: just said that, but you know, but you know, you're
Speaker 1: just like wow, and then you have a moment after
Speaker 1: that where you're like, you are like, what just happened
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But then you start this self doubt
Speaker 1: creep all that's in your head just going through your
Speaker 1: head going. I walked out, and I'm like, do I suck?
Speaker 1: Should I not be doing this? Should I go get
Speaker 1: a job? Should I should I really do a podcast?
Speaker 1: Should I write book? You know, everything about yourself comes
Speaker 1: right into question when somebody like that, does you? Does
Speaker 1: that to you? Unless it maybe happens once or twice
Speaker 1: and you go, aha, you are a mind yuckie walker. You.
Speaker 1: So I always equip everybody now with earplugs and bubble
Speaker 1: wrap my kids. I'm like, here's the earplugs for all
Speaker 1: those kind of people, and here's the bubble rep because
Speaker 1: it's a bumpy out there. Tell me what happened, Tell
Speaker 1: us all what happened to you? Because I have a
Speaker 1: sneaking suspicion. Have you read what I read in your
Speaker 1: book that it's pretty much kind of the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was very much the same, And it's I love
Speaker 2: your I love your bubble wrap analogy because I talk
Speaker 2: about in the book truth Trenches, which is that we're
Speaker 2: going to surround you in a trench of truth that
Speaker 2: the lies of the world have to pass through before
Speaker 2: they can get to you, and refined by the truth,
Speaker 2: they can't hurt you as much anymore. And it's exactly
Speaker 2: what you're talking about, that self doubt. You know, we
Speaker 2: all kind of carry around our own self doubt, right.
Speaker 3: And we try to push it down. We're like, I
Speaker 3: know that.
Speaker 2: This is this is not valid, and so you push
Speaker 2: it down, and then someone comes along and just suggests
Speaker 2: that this thing that you feel self conscious or self
Speaker 2: doubtful about could be true, and then it all comes
Speaker 2: flooding out, and so you have to have that that
Speaker 2: truth trench. But yeah, I had the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: This was. This was a woman who had been.
Speaker 1: A member a woman yeah okay, keep going.
Speaker 2: Had been a member of my community for a long time,
Speaker 2: had been a fan, a supporter, and you know, she
Speaker 2: wanted some help starting a business, and I wanted.
Speaker 3: To help her. I said sure, absolutely, Like let's.
Speaker 2: I don't have a I can't give a lot of time,
Speaker 2: but I can I can mentor you whatever that is.
Speaker 2: And you know, looking back, kind of like you said,
Speaker 2: sometimes you feel naive or stupid. I should have asked, like,
Speaker 2: what kind of business are you starting?
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: But I didn't do that, and so I was very
Speaker 2: shocking to find after I had given her some help,
Speaker 2: taught her how to set up a Shopify account and
Speaker 2: like all these other things, she launched a business that
Speaker 2: was in direct competition with mine, probably, which you know,
Speaker 2: I think that when you're a person who's trying to
Speaker 2: navigate the world and give people benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: I was like, I was like, okay, well that feels
Speaker 2: kind of bad, but also competition is good, like it's
Speaker 2: a free market, good luck. But then, man, it just
Speaker 2: snowballed from there. You know. She started lifting copy off
Speaker 2: of my website, and I knew it because I had
Speaker 2: typos in my like on my website because I was
Speaker 2: writing all my copy back then, and she would have
Speaker 2: the same typos, which all that I kind of dealt with.
Speaker 2: But then everything really came to a head when I
Speaker 2: launched my own line of diaper bags and accessories, and
Speaker 2: they it was it blew up. It was really successful
Speaker 2: and for some reason, this just really bothered this woman,
Speaker 2: and so she started sending her friends into my community,
Speaker 2: bad mouthing me to my customers behind the scenes. Then
Speaker 2: she started trashing me publicly, and it was just it
Speaker 2: was this really bizarre And so what I talk about
Speaker 2: in the book is called the reaching hand, right, like
Speaker 2: you reach back to bring someone else up the mountain
Speaker 2: behind you, and rather than them stepping up to where
Speaker 2: you are, they try to yank you back down. And
Speaker 2: that was that was what I experienced then, was just
Speaker 2: somebody who I was happy for her success, but she
Speaker 2: wasn't for mine, and she came into the ring with
Speaker 2: me to compete with me. I didn't ask to compete
Speaker 2: with you, and then was mad that she wasn't winning.
Speaker 2: And so it was just a really odd time of
Speaker 2: my life that it having time though.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's what we talk about. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like high school, you know, depending on what year you
Speaker 1: went to high school. You know, people are mean. You know,
Speaker 1: we used to be women. You know, we're in a
Speaker 1: clawing at each other to get what we want, trampling
Speaker 1: all over each other and things like that. And when
Speaker 1: you when you don't do that, it's lovely. It's like,
Speaker 1: let me help you out or be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: like I really admire what you're doing and I want
Speaker 1: to copy you. Can you help me set that up?
Speaker 1: I would have appreciated that more than just going around
Speaker 1: and doing it in the background, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like yeah, Like, because I've had people come
Speaker 1: to me and say I want to be an author,
Speaker 1: like you, can you help me get set up? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, absolutely, and then the book comes out
Speaker 1: it's different than mine or you know whatever. But I
Speaker 1: haven't had anybody like be like, okay, let me copy,
Speaker 1: percolate and put it out there again. But in general,
Speaker 1: most people are really sweet about it, and they just
Speaker 1: want to know how you did something or how you
Speaker 1: are doing something so that they can have a little
Speaker 1: bit of it too. But the go on mooch copy
Speaker 1: and copy and revise is an interesting creature when you
Speaker 1: come about come across them, isn't it?
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I would love for I would love I
Speaker 2: would love for people to be inspired by me. But
Speaker 2: inspired by and just ripping straight off of is that
Speaker 2: those are two different things. Yeah, And it's not great
Speaker 2: when we do that to each other. Let's let's not
Speaker 2: do that. But you know, thankfully that's been few and
Speaker 2: far between for the most part. Have been really fortunate
Speaker 2: to just have amazing, wonderful women around me one wonderful
Speaker 2: men too. But you do meet those people every now
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while, and it's it's important to
Speaker 1: talk about that because you know, we're on you know
Speaker 1: a lot of things are online based, and it's not
Speaker 1: perfectly safe being online all the time, no matter who
Speaker 1: you are, and things like that, so it's important to
Speaker 1: have these conversations. Make sure you check reference, it says,
Speaker 1: make sure you check other people. Now, when I do
Speaker 1: business with people, I definitely let things sit a little
Speaker 1: bit before I jump right in. I used to be
Speaker 1: very like, let's do that, let's do that. I still am,
Speaker 1: but I do let things, you know, just sort of
Speaker 1: percolate a little bit before I jump in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And my husband says, higher, slow, fire fast, And
Speaker 2: I've been trying to learn that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard too when you need help or
Speaker 1: you've got momentum or you know, it depends. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: so don't copy her book. If you're following it, it'll
Speaker 1: come out like self care for candy bars or something.
Speaker 1: It's like that, right, not okay, not okay. People, I
Speaker 1: have questions in front of me from I think they're
Speaker 1: from the publicist. Maybe I think they're from Lindsay at
Speaker 1: Ac isn't Lindsay amazing?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love her. I love her.
Speaker 1: He's so helpful. Silence. But I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that I should ask you about is how you've
Speaker 1: changed since writing the book, like what you hinted at
Speaker 1: it earlier, like, so, what version of Amber are we
Speaker 1: on compared to the version that you had. That's a
Speaker 1: really cool way of putting that too, because probably every
Speaker 1: year we're a different probably admitted to minute, maybe even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I can't claim that a friend taught
Speaker 2: that to me. He said, oh, well, you know that
Speaker 2: was from a few ambers ago, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: what a genius way to click that. So I think
Speaker 2: I think the biggest difference for me is that when
Speaker 2: I was writing, I tend to intellectualize, right, as a
Speaker 2: lot of successful women do.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, you know.
Speaker 2: We just we intellectualize things and we believe because we've
Speaker 2: intellectualized them that we understand them. And so in writing
Speaker 2: the book, as I read it. Now I realize how
Speaker 2: aspirational the book was. That it was like I understood
Speaker 2: all of these principles at an intellectual level, but looking back,
Speaker 2: I can see how I was still really struggling to
Speaker 2: actually apply those things in my own life. And so
Speaker 2: even I remember writing it and feeling like an impostor
Speaker 2: at the time, and I have a whole chapter called,
Speaker 2: you know, imposter syndrome feeling like an impostor because I
Speaker 2: could see the words that I was writing and then
Speaker 2: also seeing dysfunction in my own life and being like
Speaker 2: if only there was a book that like tel me
Speaker 2: how to navigate this that I happened to write, And
Speaker 2: so now where I am at also just like a
Speaker 2: strange sort of side note is that over the last year,
Speaker 2: probably starting in February and culminating in June of this year,
Speaker 2: I've been on a really major spiritual journey, really like
Speaker 2: I got into it, just into meditation and yoga and
Speaker 2: all these things, and.
Speaker 3: It's really brought some chill to my life.
Speaker 2: And I think being more chill has enabled me to
Speaker 2: focus on actually internalizing these things from the book. And
Speaker 2: so now I'm in this place where I'm seeing health
Speaker 2: and function and goodness coming out of me. That is
Speaker 2: directly from the things I talk about in the book,
Speaker 2: because one of the things that I say in there
Speaker 2: very often is that self care blossoms outward. And so
Speaker 2: there is this sort of toxic self care culture, particularly
Speaker 2: in social media spaces, that is very hyper individualistic, very
Speaker 2: me focused. It's very much, you know, going no contact
Speaker 2: with someone the moment that they upset you. It's devoid
Speaker 2: of things like conflict resolution and cooperation and all of
Speaker 2: these things that are required for us to have harmony
Speaker 2: in our relationships. And so now as I've been learning
Speaker 2: how to put these things that are in here into practice,
Speaker 2: I'm actually having harmony in my marriage, with my children
Speaker 2: and with my friends and at work. And it's been
Speaker 2: There's still many things I'm working on, but it is
Speaker 2: really nice to see the growth that has taken place
Speaker 2: since the time I wrote the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When I read the book, I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: really raw, and it's okay. I mean it needed to
Speaker 1: be that way. It screams like I'm I'm struggling and
Speaker 1: trying to figure this out kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 1: it just it does. It's just like, Okay, I went
Speaker 1: through this and this and this and this and this
Speaker 1: and here's how we navigated and things like that. You
Speaker 1: can feel your journey that you're on for sure. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting, I said to my husband, for I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wonder what she's going to be like now, because
Speaker 1: the book was, you know, two or three years ago.
Speaker 1: I want to know who she is now. So I'm
Speaker 1: glad you just answered that, and you can you're continuing
Speaker 1: on and so forth, because it would be hard. It
Speaker 1: would be hard to be the book. I mean, the
Speaker 1: book's fabulous, but it would be hard to be there
Speaker 1: all the time, wouldn't it. In every going to be
Speaker 1: in that book and situations and things like that and
Speaker 1: stay there without the growth?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's what The end.
Speaker 1: Of the chapter is so nice. It's like, here's and
Speaker 1: here's some strategies.
Speaker 2: Right, because you do, as I was saying earlier, you
Speaker 2: do sometimes find in these healing and mental health communities
Speaker 2: there can be this persevere where people are just kind
Speaker 2: I don't like the phrase circling the drain, but I
Speaker 2: can't think of a better one right now, where they're
Speaker 2: just sort of like centering on their pain, which is
Speaker 2: important and valid, right, that is an important part of
Speaker 2: the process is having your feelings validated and told that
Speaker 2: what you're going through is real and it happened and
Speaker 2: it's okay, and it sucks, but then you've got.
Speaker 3: To get yourself out of that.
Speaker 2: And something that I loved about your story about your
Speaker 2: dad and the ABC's and when he got to f
Speaker 2: and oh it was it was a bad word, but
Speaker 2: I changed it to faith and that really resonated with
Speaker 2: me because I feel.
Speaker 3: Like, when are you saying that F word?
Speaker 2: It's when things are going really really bad, right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's when you're saying that F word.
Speaker 3: And what do you need in that moment? Is you
Speaker 3: need faith.
Speaker 2: And whether that's a spiritual faith in like in God
Speaker 2: or any other kind of deity, or whether it's it's
Speaker 2: faith in yourself faith in others, that's what you need
Speaker 2: in those other F word moments, you know. And then
Speaker 2: I just I love that story so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was cool. My dad was very cool like
Speaker 1: that though he was he was such an inspiration and
Speaker 1: how to survive, navigate, and be resilient. He used to say,
Speaker 1: who did I piss off to have this happen to me?
Speaker 1: Who did I piss off to have this because he
Speaker 1: was the nicest guy everything. He used to be so
Speaker 1: down on himself, like what did I do wrong? And
Speaker 1: we've nothing, just you know, shit happens, you know, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately this has happened to you, But he may and
Speaker 1: then he would make the best of it and he
Speaker 1: would find you know, he's like, Okay, here's what I'm
Speaker 1: living for. Because he was you know, if you saw
Speaker 1: what he went through and we're there and the ice
Speaker 1: you and things like that, you'd be like, how's this
Speaker 1: guy going to get out of the ICU let alone
Speaker 1: live and then go back and ring the bell? See
Speaker 1: his daughter? You know, my sister, younger sister married and
Speaker 1: my younger brother married, and you know, all these things
Speaker 1: that he had to live for and stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was a moment right there. He looked at
Speaker 1: us like it was funny. He was really really, really smart,
Speaker 1: and then that abc moment he's like he was almost
Speaker 1: flabbergasted with how stupid the exercise was. You know, like,
Speaker 1: you guys think I'm this stabilitated, that I've lost my
Speaker 1: mind too? Are you kidding me? You know kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He was mad, And so it was funny because he
Speaker 1: was mad, but this joyous list of things to survive.
Speaker 1: So I couldn't tell whether he was being facetious or accurate,
Speaker 1: you know, like teaching. He was teaching, but it was
Speaker 1: pretty funny in that moment. I'm like, what the heck
Speaker 1: did he just he just said platypus. Really, you know,
Speaker 1: one of my books is there's an ard Vark and
Speaker 1: a platypus, you know, find your inner art work, a
Speaker 1: platypus to survive and all the letters there therefore, But
Speaker 1: thank you for saying that, because yeah, good old Daddy's
Speaker 1: always here. He's he was really cool. Okay, tell me
Speaker 1: about I have so many questions about. Okay, when you
Speaker 1: look at you, it doesn't seem like there's a darn
Speaker 1: thing that you would ever have to be worried about.
Speaker 1: And this happens to us. Just hang on, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You go to the doctor and people
Speaker 1: say you look good. I've gone to the doctor before
Speaker 1: strep full on strep throat and they've been like, you
Speaker 1: look good. Oh yeah, I have strip throat. That kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, tell me about what. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: you can pass on this too. Tell me about like
Speaker 1: your childhood, Like what brought you here?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What there's the book? What has happened to you?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Tell me about you a little bit more. We know
Speaker 1: you're an author, we know you have this story, we
Speaker 1: know this, but but what brought you here? What brought
Speaker 1: you to being a doctor of psychology? What brought you
Speaker 1: into this mindset space? TikTok? All these things just navigate
Speaker 1: us to tell us who you are?
Speaker 2: Sure so, And this is the part that can get
Speaker 2: tricky for me to talk about. I get it, yeah,
Speaker 2: But one of the things that I feel comfortable talking
Speaker 2: about is that in my house growing up, I had
Speaker 2: one parent who was diagnosed with depression and another parent
Speaker 2: who clearly needed to be diagnosed with anxiety and refused
Speaker 2: to get that diagnosis, And so there was a lot
Speaker 2: of dysfunction in the household because my mother, who had
Speaker 2: been diagnosed with depression, had a very contentious relationship with
Speaker 2: her mental health in that at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: there was still a lot of shame and stigma around
Speaker 2: things like depression and anxiety, and so she was constantly
Speaker 2: trying to distance herself from that, and the way that
Speaker 2: she did that was to not take her medicine to
Speaker 2: not go to therapy to you know, and she would
Speaker 2: go through times in her life where she was really
Speaker 2: devout about those things, and then she would go through
Speaker 2: times in her life where she wasn't and when she
Speaker 2: wasn't taking good care of her mental health. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of dysfunction that would happen in our family
Speaker 2: as a result. Then you add to that my father
Speaker 2: who had anxiety, that if he had had that diagnosed,
Speaker 2: then we would all understand where his behavior was coming from.
Speaker 2: Some of the as a person diagnosed with anxiety myself,
Speaker 2: some of them neuroticism, the irritability, these are all things
Speaker 2: that come from that can come from anxiety. But often
Speaker 2: he just seemed mad and irritable and impatient all the time.
Speaker 2: And so as a child watching my father and being like,
Speaker 2: he's so mad and I don't understand why. If there
Speaker 2: been a label for that, I was just like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's anxious. I don't think I would have internalized some
Speaker 2: of that stuff. And so same with my mom. You know,
Speaker 2: when my mom's depression was not being treated, often, you know,
Speaker 2: I internalized what was going on with her as being
Speaker 2: my fault, my problem, my thing I needed to fix,
Speaker 2: and a question I still have in my mind was
Speaker 2: was I parentified by my parents or did I parentify myself?
Speaker 2: Like did I decide to become the parent? But I
Speaker 2: often felt like it was my obligation to take care
Speaker 2: of particularly my mom. And she was a brilliant woman,
Speaker 2: a successful woman. I don't mean to like infantalize my mother.
Speaker 2: She's a kick ass lady.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I.
Speaker 2: Felt like when it came to her mental health, she
Speaker 2: needed me to take care of her sometimes. And so
Speaker 2: I was like, when I got older and I realized
Speaker 2: I had inherited some of this that like I can
Speaker 2: be depressed, I can be anxious, I was like, then
Speaker 2: I want to understand this to the greatest degree.
Speaker 3: And I knew better than.
Speaker 2: To become a therapist because I was like, I think
Speaker 2: I'm messed up enough that like, I don't think I'm
Speaker 2: the person that needs to be telling people how to
Speaker 2: go live their life. The irony of that now this
Speaker 2: is my book is just now landing on me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That was like, I was like, that's how we learned, though,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, we heal and learn through what we're doing,
Speaker 1: so it's all good. I got the same thing people
Speaker 1: I've had that said to me, some of hims you
Speaker 1: why you just ignore it?
Speaker 2: Keep yeah, And so I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get a PhD in cognitive psychology. I'm
Speaker 2: going to study self regulation and emotion regulation because I
Speaker 2: if I understand these things at the at the biological level,
Speaker 2: then everything will make sense to me. My parents be behavior,
Speaker 2: my behavior, other people's behavior. And then what do you know,
Speaker 2: I got the degree and still nobody made sense. Everyone's crazy,
Speaker 2: I'm crazy, We're all. We all act in unpredictable ways
Speaker 2: that having a degree really can't fix.
Speaker 3: And so it was then that I was like, how interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, the COVID happened, and I was like, I
Speaker 2: think I'm just gonna get on the internet and talk
Speaker 2: about some of this stuff. And so that's what I
Speaker 2: started doing, and you know, I built an audience trying
Speaker 2: to be I was told I had big sister energy,
Speaker 2: and that was what I was just trying to bring,
Speaker 2: like I just hey, it's your big siss just giving
Speaker 2: you a little life lesson. And it kind of stuck,
Speaker 2: and it's been what I've really come to enjoy is
Speaker 2: just trying to bring sort of heady mental health concepts
Speaker 2: and distilling them in a way that is relatable and
Speaker 2: hopefully sometimes funny, hopefully sometimes you know, emotionally evocative, and
Speaker 2: then teach people something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there anything that you've put out there? We're like,
Speaker 1: I wish I wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 3: I'm sure.
Speaker 2: If I'm pausing, it's because there's a lot of them.
Speaker 1: I'm always nervous. I'm like, what are people going to
Speaker 1: say and do? Sometimes you get told too, it's like like,
Speaker 1: like mind you get trolled, kind of good, you know,
Speaker 1: like get off of here year old or whatever. People
Speaker 1: are sometimes me but you know, quick to lete button
Speaker 1: fixes that and you just you know, it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you're not my people's That's true.
Speaker 2: I did go through a phase that I'm not very
Speaker 2: proud of, which is, you know, I had just separated
Speaker 2: from my husband. I was very unhealed at that time,
Speaker 2: very hurt and angry and just waking up to like
Speaker 2: real feminism, which is funny because what I was doing
Speaker 2: was not real feminism at all, but like really coming
Speaker 2: to understand the role of patriarchy and white supremacy and
Speaker 2: like all these things, learning about them all at once,
Speaker 2: and what happened is I became just very angry at men,
Speaker 2: and so I spent a lot of time talking about
Speaker 2: I would always say, I'm talking about women's issues. These
Speaker 2: are I'm talking about women's issues. But I was doing
Speaker 2: it in such a combative and nasty way that was
Speaker 2: I was a real turn off to men who really
Speaker 2: could have could have benefited from what I had to say,
Speaker 2: and also to women who were like, I have men
Speaker 2: who I love, and you're coming across so nasty. And
Speaker 2: so I do regret that time of my life. And
Speaker 2: it's why when I pitched to Psychology Today to have
Speaker 2: my own column there, I pitched the idea of compassionate feminism.
Speaker 2: That's the name of my column. And so now I'm
Speaker 2: trying to pay for my past sins and talk about
Speaker 2: concepts that bring men into the conversation in a loving
Speaker 2: and gentle way, recognizing that men are the victims of
Speaker 2: all of these structures too.
Speaker 1: I'd love to be interviewed for that column as the
Speaker 1: mother of four boys, Oh my god, they're all. If
Speaker 1: you ever get a chance to do that, please boote
Speaker 1: me in. Yeah, because as a mother of four boys,
Speaker 1: I can't believe what my boys have Our boys have
Speaker 1: endured and they're all straight A. One's a college athlete. Ones.
Speaker 1: You know, they've got master's degrees, they've got they're so sweet,
Speaker 1: they're so this and that. But people are very biased, yes,
Speaker 1: against boys like my college athlete. People just assume he's
Speaker 1: a bad student. It's like, wait a minute, two master's
Speaker 1: degrees in the Presidential award and he's a straight A student,
Speaker 1: went to Georgetown.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Uh, it's very interesting. So if you ever get, if
Speaker 1: you ever get a moment to include me, I would
Speaker 1: absolutely cherish that moment. Oh that would be attack your
Speaker 1: column or anything like that, but to just be included
Speaker 1: would be lovely.
Speaker 3: No, I would love that.
Speaker 1: Always wanted an opportunity like that to talk about boys. Yea,
Speaker 1: there are four boys to talk about some of the
Speaker 1: things that they go through that are very different. But
Speaker 1: just people like people just assume they're bad students too.
Speaker 1: We are interesting.
Speaker 2: We've come to a weird place in society where we
Speaker 2: look at men, and particularly white men, and we say, oh,
Speaker 2: you are the most privileged, so therefore you have no struggles.
Speaker 2: And when when those men try to talk about their struggles,
Speaker 2: we sometimes will do this thing where we're like, don't
Speaker 2: don't you dare, don't you dare?
Speaker 3: Act like.
Speaker 2: Right, and and I was doing a lot of that
Speaker 2: and then realizing, like patriarchy and the reason why we
Speaker 2: have to abolish these structures. And I know this isn't
Speaker 2: what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Here before, it's important and I'll tell you why in
Speaker 1: a minute. Just keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the reason why we have to abolish these structures
Speaker 2: is because they hurt everyone and and men are not
Speaker 2: exempt from that. And and so I mean, men are
Speaker 2: committing suicide at an alarming rate, the amount of pressure
Speaker 2: that is put on men to provide. You know, there
Speaker 2: are men who would rather go commit suicide than come
Speaker 2: home and tell their wives that they lost their job.
Speaker 2: And these are all the result of patriarchy and the
Speaker 2: harms that they do to men.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know it was interesting because I was
Speaker 1: reading there you touched on this in your book just slightly,
Speaker 1: and I wondered if you were going to come on
Speaker 1: here and be angry. I said that to Peter too.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know her well enough yet, I've
Speaker 1: never pre interviewed, and if she goes all out against men,
Speaker 1: you know kind of thing I hope she doesn't do that.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, she looks all smiling and happy and
Speaker 1: things like that. I don't see any of her stuff,
Speaker 1: but there's a touch of it over here. And you
Speaker 1: were talking about and then I read it and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's talking about what she went through after that, and
Speaker 1: I'm mad at like almost like mad at the world.
Speaker 1: You were in a way in certain points. So I
Speaker 1: caught onto it and I'm like, no, that's not her,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to bring it up. I'm like it
Speaker 1: made me like, go, I get that way too, you know,
Speaker 1: I get so, but I get so defensive of men.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, well you try going and cleaning
Speaker 1: that up, because every time the garbage gets taken out here,
Speaker 1: it's not me doing it. There's so many things that
Speaker 1: we take men for granted for these days, and I
Speaker 1: want to be all like opposite of it, all like
Speaker 1: women doing their thing and women go, go, go, but
Speaker 1: don't leave this whole crowd out. Now. It's like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you know we need to be and no, no no,
Speaker 1: It's like that's me, Yeah, we.
Speaker 2: Need to be bringing them along. And what's crazy is
Speaker 2: and again this was when I was at my most
Speaker 2: ignorant about feminism was when I was like, exclude the men,
Speaker 2: keep them out. And it turns out that you know
Speaker 2: the most the most prolific thinkers and writers, Belle Hooks
Speaker 2: being one of them. Their whole premise was like, men
Speaker 2: are harmed by patriarchy to and we must include them.
Speaker 2: They must be included and so and a part of
Speaker 2: my healing journey, part of reconciling my marriage and my
Speaker 2: husband going to therapy and showing me like I learned.
Speaker 2: I talk about it in the book. So many things
Speaker 2: that I attributed as being negative qualities about him. I
Speaker 2: put this negative label on his behaviors, and when he
Speaker 2: went to therapy discovering that there are these deep seated
Speaker 2: issues from his childhood that underpinned so many of these
Speaker 2: things that I assigned a negative label to. And it
Speaker 2: was a big part of healing my relationship with men.
Speaker 2: You know, realize and as a boy mom myself, I
Speaker 2: have a son. It's very important that I did that work.
Speaker 2: And I don't think we're having that conversation enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't think we are either. And I
Speaker 1: don't know that I'm totally I feel more experiential about
Speaker 1: it rather than educated about it. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I've ever taken a class in this or that to
Speaker 1: learn about it. More. You just sort of feel it,
Speaker 1: and you feel your mom paving the way with a
Speaker 1: job with eleven kids. You feel your mom, you know,
Speaker 1: doing things. But you know, I can tell you that
Speaker 1: I feel personally like I've turned like we've turning. We've
Speaker 1: turned out four boys. They know how to cook, clean, love,
Speaker 1: you know, like I could go through ten things that
Speaker 1: they they're very self sufficient human beings with compassion towards
Speaker 1: women and support towards women. Not I'm going to squash
Speaker 1: you like a bug well or you know, none of
Speaker 1: that going on that we've all experienced over our lifetimes
Speaker 1: in various ways, and with particular sensitivity to some of
Speaker 1: the stories I've shared with them about my experiences with
Speaker 1: men in the workplace and things that I've gone through.
Speaker 1: They know all my stories, so they, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm in here, lone female. All the animals or girls.
Speaker 3: Had to bring balance somewhat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, there's my validation that dogs are girls.
Speaker 1: But you know, you can share these stories about what's
Speaker 1: happened to you as a girl, and they're like, that's
Speaker 1: not right, you know kind of thing. So you feel
Speaker 1: like there's four more people in the world who have
Speaker 1: love and compassion towards women and are lifting them up
Speaker 1: rather than whatever whatever it is, whatever the other thing is,
Speaker 1: they don't do that, so it's cool. Is it ever
Speaker 1: too late to start with all of these self care
Speaker 1: things that you talk about in your book?
Speaker 2: No, I mean, of course I would love. I would
Speaker 2: love to go back and tell my thirteen year old
Speaker 2: self to start now, But no, it's never too late.
Speaker 2: And I think I think the beautiful thing about get
Speaker 2: older is you know, I'm going to be forty in
Speaker 2: January and realizing that, like, man, I'm I talk about
Speaker 2: this in the book, I'm heading into the sandwichy years.
Speaker 2: The sandwich being when you have parents who are still
Speaker 2: alive but are getting older and becoming more dependent on you,
Speaker 2: and you also have children who still need you. And
Speaker 2: I feel like as we get older, we start to
Speaker 2: really realize, wait a minute, I can't take care of
Speaker 2: all of my people when I'm not taking care of
Speaker 2: myself and everything that I've been doing through my twenties
Speaker 2: and my thirties to try to spread myself too thin
Speaker 2: and try to help everybody and they say yes to
Speaker 2: everything and all like that. That hasn't really served me
Speaker 2: very well. And it turns out I'm not even taking
Speaker 2: care of my loved ones as well as I could
Speaker 2: because I'm so burnout. And so I think women our
Speaker 2: age are really in a great position to begin this
Speaker 2: work now, because for once in our lives, we're starting
Speaker 2: to realize, maybe all that striving and all that self
Speaker 2: sacrifice that I've been doing, it wasn't really helping me,
Speaker 2: and maybe wasn't even helping other people. Maybe I've just
Speaker 2: been running in the in the hamster wheel, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, that's a that's a chapter in my book,
Speaker 1: that hamster Wheel. It's impercolating the very first book I did. Yes,
Speaker 1: but there's a whole hamster wheel thing in there about that,
Speaker 1: because I totally agree with you in that it's really
Speaker 1: hard as women. Let's just talk about women for a second.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to do everything. There's so much responsibility
Speaker 1: on different aspects of your life, from just holding down
Speaker 1: your own job and career. Then children come into play.
Speaker 1: If you're there, okay, who makes dinner? Who makes breakfast?
Speaker 1: Who makes lunch, Who makes the kids lunches? Who make
Speaker 1: who cleans? What else is there? Join in on the who?
Speaker 1: What else is there that we have to car repairs,
Speaker 1: car to keep going. Let's do the you know, there's
Speaker 1: so much, so.
Speaker 2: Many things we have to do, the moral lessons we
Speaker 2: have to be doing, the disciplining way, like it just
Speaker 2: the list goes.
Speaker 1: On and on. So how do you stop doing that?
Speaker 1: Like I could? I have. I've really had a hard
Speaker 1: time figuring that. My kids were like zero, two, four
Speaker 1: and six. Oh, came home from the hospital, right, I
Speaker 1: mean really, I'm not kidding, Like I can remember in
Speaker 1: that moment, four strollers, four car seats, zero two four
Speaker 1: six not really that much help because I lived in
Speaker 1: California at the time. I remember sitting there praying for
Speaker 1: a shower, and then postpartum depression kicks in and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh boy, the first one. I got some interesting postpartum
Speaker 1: depression that lingered on for a little bit and it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, what is this? And it's called like
Speaker 1: being completely overwhelmed with every single aspect of every single
Speaker 1: aspect of your life and not having proper help, not
Speaker 1: having proper really anything. In that moment, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know how people do. I remember in that moment
Speaker 1: just like crying and be like, I should be the
Speaker 1: best mom in the world. This should be the best
Speaker 1: moment in the world, and instead, this is really really tricky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you have that?
Speaker 3: Of course? I still say to this day.
Speaker 2: I looked at Charlie just the other night and I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know how people do it with
Speaker 2: more than two kids. I don't know how they do it.
Speaker 2: And it is it's an and dare you say out
Speaker 2: loud that, Hey, I'm not enjoying this mom gig as
Speaker 2: much as I thought I was going to. Hey, I
Speaker 2: wish I could have a shower.
Speaker 1: I remember under that boy, Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember. There was this one day. This was a
Speaker 3: big fight for me and Charlie.
Speaker 2: I'd been at home with our son all day and
Speaker 2: at the time, my son was going to bed at
Speaker 2: four pm and waking up for the day at four am,
Speaker 2: and then was up twelve to twenty four times a night,
Speaker 2: and I was the only one getting up with him,
Speaker 2: and so I was exhausted. I was smelly, I was
Speaker 2: I hadn't eaten, I was miserable, and Charlie came home,
Speaker 2: and this was early on in our marriage. Charlie came
Speaker 2: home and he said, I said, can you please take
Speaker 2: the baby? I need to I just need to go
Speaker 2: to the bathroom. If I'm being honest, like I just need.
Speaker 1: To go to No. I have those moments, yeah and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he said, hold on, let me go take
Speaker 2: a shower and then I'll take take the baby. And
Speaker 2: I was like I lost it. I was like I
Speaker 2: cannot believe. I cannot believe and you need no. No.
Speaker 1: That was early on a place where I would put
Speaker 1: like a like a play pen.
Speaker 2: You get to that point you're like, I don't know
Speaker 2: what else to do.
Speaker 1: I got a shower, I don't know what else to
Speaker 1: do here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but these are the stories that like don't get told,
Speaker 2: and then you tell them and you're an ungrateful mom.
Speaker 2: Well you shouldn't have had kids if you still wanted
Speaker 2: to shower and eat and shit.
Speaker 1: You know, like, can I leave that in?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Of course.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, yeah yeah, and then you know,
Speaker 1: prepare the ten course meal for somebody's walking in the
Speaker 1: door from work.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, wild, It's like you.
Speaker 1: Gotta be kidding me. So I just completely related to
Speaker 1: like everything in your book. I'm like, oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how many shades of red eye
Speaker 1: am right now, but yeah, it was. I just remember.
Speaker 1: I remember that being really really tough, and I still marvel.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you all do it? You know?
Speaker 1: And no amount of nanny, no, no amount of anything. Really,
Speaker 1: you know. I think I told this in my book.
Speaker 1: I tell this in all my books and my point.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a financial service executive, right I
Speaker 1: would fly around with two small toddlers and a nanny
Speaker 1: to my doing my job around the country. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, hotel everything. And I'm like, I finally don't
Speaker 1: know if you know my whole story, but I burned
Speaker 1: my immune system out. I have lifelong life threatened, life
Speaker 1: threatening food allergies. Like my immune system completely kablueyed. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know any better, you know, I just thought,
Speaker 1: you know, this is what we do as women, you know,
Speaker 1: we do four hundred things. So you bring it on. Okay.
Speaker 1: I guess if I'm going to work and have this job,
Speaker 1: the kids are coming too, because certainly who's going to
Speaker 1: take care of them but me? You know, kind of
Speaker 1: so finally I got divorced, got remarried, and my beautiful
Speaker 1: husband of twenty six plus years now was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's lovely. He's like, I have an idea. Just take
Speaker 1: a rest, you know kind of thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: you do what you want to do, but you know,
Speaker 1: let's breathe a little bit here. You know, if you
Speaker 1: want to take a break from working so hard, just
Speaker 1: take care of the kids, or if you want to
Speaker 1: work from home or whatever. It all morphed into best
Speaker 1: ever you. I mean, I'll tell you though, I got
Speaker 1: so sick of it. When the little one came went
Speaker 1: into first grade. I was like, okay, I've super had
Speaker 1: enough of my hair on top of my head, no makeup, sweats.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, you know kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I was like, suits and heels, suits and heels, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of makeup done, hair done. Let me get a
Speaker 1: job into first grade. I've got my financial services job VP.
Speaker 1: All this thing I went into. Four guys fighting. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you've got to be kidding me. I'm serious, four grown
Speaker 1: men fighting over their family business. I'm like, oh, oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. So I quit on the spot and I
Speaker 1: wrote I wrote before I did, though, I wrote best
Speaker 1: ever You, best ever Me. I'm like, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: there it is. It's best ever you. Because if I'm
Speaker 1: going through this and I can't be sixteen different humans
Speaker 1: at once, you know, because you know, the nannies would
Speaker 1: call me at work and I'm like, oh my god, seriously,
Speaker 1: I can't even have a job now either. Ah, you
Speaker 1: know kind of thing. And I wrote on best ever You,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, there it is. There it is.
Speaker 1: Everybody's going through the same exact thing. We're just all
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to navigate doing six hundred
Speaker 1: things at once and be twelve people.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And so I quit right on the spot, went home,
Speaker 1: told everybody like, what did you do? I quit my
Speaker 1: job and marched up the street and got the domain
Speaker 1: best ever You, and it's been I interviewed a lady
Speaker 1: who had a baby business at her table. It was
Speaker 1: my best friend from kindergarten doing sewing baby bibs at
Speaker 1: her kitchen table. Jealous that that jealous that all of
Speaker 1: our friends were having kids and she wasn't, and giving
Speaker 1: baby gifts since she has kids now and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But she was so fuming mad, and we put her
Speaker 1: on best Ever. You she you know, got her story going.
Speaker 1: She she's making six figures doing baby bibs at her
Speaker 1: kitchen table. Just an incredible business. And here it is
Speaker 1: and podcasting and books and things like that. But you
Speaker 1: know what's our message here to people like you can't
Speaker 1: do it all? You can do it all, Good luck
Speaker 1: doing it all. Do what's right for you, be author.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the message? See how confusing that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I think the overall message is one
Speaker 2: that has become cliche. But sometimes things only become cliche
Speaker 2: because they are so true and we need to keep
Speaker 2: hearing them. And that is that self care is not selfish,
Speaker 2: that that you truly cannot care for. You cannot do
Speaker 2: your job right, You cannot take care of your marriage,
Speaker 2: you cannot take care of your kids and your family
Speaker 2: and your friendships and everything unless you are deeply and
Speaker 2: dearly investing in yourself, because otherwise you're going to be
Speaker 2: so burnt out that you know, in these efforts to
Speaker 2: be great at everything, you end up being good at none.
Speaker 2: And so when you say, like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: going to stop trying to be great or perfect at everything,
Speaker 2: and I am going to I talk about in the
Speaker 2: article I wrote for your publications. Let good enough be
Speaker 2: good enough, so that you can take time for yourself.
Speaker 2: And that's a hard thing, particularly for women who have
Speaker 2: been conditioned to understand that we have to sometimes be
Speaker 2: ten times greater than other people just because we're women,
Speaker 2: and so it's hard to put that perfectionism down. But
Speaker 2: I truly think when we put that aside, and when
Speaker 2: we say it isn't self for me to take care
Speaker 2: of myself, it's not selfish to say no, I am
Speaker 2: allowed to be a kind and caring person and also
Speaker 2: have limits and boundaries, and one doesn't erase the other. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that embracing that is how we actually end
Speaker 2: up being able to take better care of our people
Speaker 2: and the things we care about.
Speaker 1: They end up being a really good parent that way. Yes,
Speaker 1: a little bit of self care in the mix. So
Speaker 1: I remember I used to sit here and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to clean the house, we're gonna make this elaboraten,
Speaker 1: or we're gonna take care of all the kids. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go swim and go to the park, walk the dogs.
Speaker 1: You know, like a list of like forty five things
Speaker 1: in my day. And my husband would get home because
Speaker 1: I wasn't working at this exact moment, and be like,
Speaker 1: what do you do today? And I'm like, here's the listing,
Speaker 1: here's what I did. You know, Yeah, it's like seventy
Speaker 1: five things. He's like, oh my god, how'd you do
Speaker 1: all that? And it's like, you know, because there's a
Speaker 1: cape and a superhero logo and you know it says
Speaker 1: mom on the back of it. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: get tired, you do, and then you have to be
Speaker 1: careful of yourself and you have to really implement, pull
Speaker 1: back on some things, let some things go, and implement.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, it was a dreadful day when I
Speaker 1: said no to the blue gun at the Christmas party?
Speaker 1: Oh thea Did you see that on TikTok? That mom?
Speaker 1: She's like the Venmo mom. No, you got to look
Speaker 1: her up. You look her up. Yeah, she's like I
Speaker 1: wrote her a note. She wrote me back. I'm like you,
Speaker 1: I'm way older than you, but you remember you remind
Speaker 1: me of me at the time. I again, four small kids.
Speaker 1: They're like four, six, eight, and ten, and the I
Speaker 1: think either the six or eight year old classroom was like, yes,
Speaker 1: and you two can be the room mom. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: hell no, I have no way. Am I being the
Speaker 1: room mom on top of having four small kids ages
Speaker 1: zero or ages six through ten. There's just no way
Speaker 1: humanly possible. They all have sports, they all have tep no,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, and how much money do you need?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Check, I will pay for it all day long. But
Speaker 1: then somebody signed me up for They're like, you have
Speaker 1: to come in and help, and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to, and you know, and I've done my fair
Speaker 1: share pta Don't get me wrong, I've done it. I've
Speaker 1: been there, done it enough, and I love them and
Speaker 1: I love all the moms who do that and can
Speaker 1: do ten million things at once. For me, I couldn't.
Speaker 1: But they signed me up to do the glue gun
Speaker 1: for the T shirt Topepeg tote bags at the Christmas
Speaker 1: Carnival and I'm like, oh, man, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what a glue gun. I didn't I honestly got I'm
Speaker 1: like a glue gun, I've never used one of these.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do this. But it was
Speaker 1: cutting the sleeves off of a T shirt and then
Speaker 1: gluing the things together to make gif kids toe bags
Speaker 1: and every toe bag I did, man, they came on
Speaker 1: glued in the second and pretty soon it's for coming.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm up there with a stapler.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this time, I'm like, I'm.
Speaker 1: So sorry I staple your tote bags.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, and the crazy that we're talking
Speaker 2: about this now, I'm gonna have to sign off in
Speaker 2: just a couple of years. I know, we have to
Speaker 2: go pick up my kids from school, but we can
Speaker 2: have a whole separate conversation about how unfair, how the
Speaker 2: schools don't have any other choice, but what a terrible
Speaker 2: position it puts mothers in because it's not usually the
Speaker 2: fathers who are getting called in for pta, but there
Speaker 2: is absolutely no space for like, what do you do
Speaker 2: if you're a mom who works and you're still expected
Speaker 2: to show up and do these things. There's this this
Speaker 2: this assumption that you don't work, and it's just like the.
Speaker 1: Worst big time. It was. It was way prevalent back
Speaker 1: when I was having kids. Clare's anyway, it has been
Speaker 1: so much fun.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, totally.
Speaker 1: Totally talk about every topic known to mankind with you
Speaker 1: I hope you come back. We can do more focused
Speaker 1: shows or whatever you want to do. I'm going to
Speaker 1: end recording here in a minute. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: sign off. I'll edit this out and then I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you for a second. But anyway, I want to Amber,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here with us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Tell us how to find you? What are your websites?
Speaker 1: Where do you want us to go find you in
Speaker 1: social media?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: So? My website is Amber Wardell dot com and from
Speaker 2: there you can subscribe to my newsletter. I sometimes do
Speaker 2: sneak peaks and things like that, and then I am
Speaker 2: sensible underscore Amber on pretty much all social media, particularly
Speaker 2: Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 1: And then let's hold that book up one more time
Speaker 1: more time.
Speaker 2: Yes it really This is October twenty ninth. It's available
Speaker 2: for pre order now and all the places where you
Speaker 2: can order books.
Speaker 1: Perfect, all right, thank you for joining us, Thank you
Speaker 1: Amber for being here. Thank you for all your fun, wisdom,
Speaker 1: raw honesty and moments and safe space to share a
Speaker 1: course because that was really fun. But anyway, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks very body for listening. Take care, Thanks for bye,