If You Could See Yourself Like I Do, with Dr. Amanda Nell Edgar

 This week, we sit down with Dr. Amanda Nell Edgar, the visionary founder of Page and Podium Press, and co-author of The Summer of 2020.  Amanda's greatest gift is guiding individuals to find  clarity and potential amidst disorder.  We explore her commendable efforts to elevate marginalized voices and how her educational background fuels her mission to empower others.

Join our conversation as we navigate the power of joy and education during times of strife, confusion and self doubt.  Amanda provides heartwarming insights into the  essential role of education in fostering equal opportunities. She opens up about the cumulative stress of parenting college students and the often paralyzing emotion of self-doubt. Amanda also introduces a confidence-boosting exercise that has helped her and countless others to see their true worth through the affirmations of their close supporters.

Discover the transformative power of personal stories and self-awareness with Amanda's inspiring anecdotes, including her work with a former Olympian. We discuss the profound impact of self-discovery and understanding one's core identity, even when it leads to difficult changes in career or personal life. Through reflection and celebrating personal achievements, Amanda encourages listeners to recognize their greatness and embrace their full potential. Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, practical advice, and rejuvenating inspiration.

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***Last thing- This is my WISH LIST of interviews:

• Joan Jett
• Dolly Parton
• Viola Davis
• Ina Garten

Maybe you can help a girl out...***

Go check out all of our episodes on our website at: https://womeninthearena.net/

If you'd like to connect, reach out to me at audra@womeninthearena.net

***One last thing...I have an interview wish list because a girl's gotta dream

• Viola Davis
• Dolly Parton
• Ina Garten
• Joan Jett

Maybe one of you can help me out!

Thank you all for supporting this show and all Women in the Arena!

Transcript

Audra: 0:31

Welcome in everyone and thank you for joining me once again this week. This week we are going to be engaging in an amazing and intriguing conversation with my guest, dr Amanda Nell Edgar. She is an award-winning author. She's a ghostwriter, book coach and founder of Page and Podium Press. She's also a nationally recognized speaker from organizations like FedEx to the US Department of State. She is an expert in seeing possibility. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Amanda. Amanda, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.

Amanda: 1:14

Thank you so much. I'm so excited for this conversation.

Audra: 1:17

I am too. We have a really interesting conversation planned today, but before we start that conversation, let's get to know you a little bit more. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Amanda and how did you get here?

Amanda: 1:30

Yeah, well, I'm all kinds of things. As you said, I'm an author, I'm a ghostwriter, I own a publishing company. We focus on leadership stories and helping women and other people from marginalized communities really level up their message, get out there and reach the people that they want to help. But I'm a lot of things. I also like to cook. I'm an avid knitter. I have all kinds of pets in and out of my house all the time. All the things.

Audra: 1:57

You are an author of a book that just got published, that you are I should say you're the co-author of a book called the Summer of 2020, which what a summer that was. Yeah, do you remember what it was like? It was bananas. It was insane. I was actually thinking about this just a couple of days ago, thinking, was that really just four years ago, where the world was bizarre?

Amanda: 2:27

Absolutely Not even four years ago, I think, coming up on the anniversary, really, of George Floyd's murder. But so much happened after that as well, and I think it's also we've sort of collectively blocked out what that time was like, even before the Black Lives Matter protests, because we had just gotten into COVID. We weren't even really sure what COVID was. We talk a lot in the book about this that there was a time when and I know some folks will still do this, that is so great Everybody should protect their health the way they want to but that there was a time when we didn't even know whether it was safer outdoors or indoors, or whether you needed a mask outdoors or whether you could even be inside at all.

Amanda: 3:17

So that was the time that we were talking about really was not only the uprising surrounding George Floyd's murder, but also we were in the middle of unprecedented health risks as well as a lot of reactionary moves from not only folks on the far right who are trying to shut down the Black Lives Matter protests. A lot of police forces were engaging in some really unethical, terrible things toward protesters. It was just a mess of a time. So we really wanted to record that, and I will tell you what, going back through, when you publish a book, you see the manuscript at a lot of different points, and so, relatively recently, we had to go through and do the proofing, look at the final copy and just sign off that everything was how we wanted it. And I will tell you there were things about that time that I had totally forgotten.

Audra: 4:10

Do you remember Murder Hornets? We also had Murder Hornets. In the middle of all of that, murder hornets we also had murder hornets. In the middle of all of that. It was just and there was tsunamis there was, there was. It was a bizarre, bizarre time that, yes, I blocked out a lot of it on purpose, because, because it felt like it was a lost year.

Amanda: 4:31

It did, yeah and no, we didn't even know what was going to happen the next day. I mean, if you were you know I've been in education, my partner's in education it was really unclear, you know, would we have to be back in the classroom or would we never be back in the classroom? Was this our new normal? And yeah, no one knew and there was really no guidance, and I think that is really part of what felt so electric in a terrible way. But also there were some really good things that came out of that collective energy that I think we haven't seen since quite as much.

Audra: 5:04

And I agree with that, and that also is actually a great segue to talk about exactly what we're here to talk about. And, as you heard a little bit of a snippet of what Amanda can do, which is look for the good in the middle of the chaos, as she is documented in her new book. But she doesn't just do that with situations. Her specialty is actually people, and one of the first things that she said to me when we first met was I would love for you to be able to see yourself the way I see you and I thought, wow, what a, what a powerful statement.

Audra: 5:46

And oh, and that's a little bit intimidating because you're you're immediately start thinking, um, well, what does that mean? What does she? Can she see right through me? Can she see the deep, darks, tender spots inside? But it's a very kind, powerful endeavor that she does where her specific target is authors, but it's not just that, it's people in general. Authors, but it's not just that it's people in general. So tell us I know that you're an educator, so this probably came a little bit from your education background of being a teacher of young minds shaper and teacher of young minds but how did you start to develop this on purpose of seeing the best in people and what they could be, rather than who they are.

Amanda: 6:40

Yeah, I do think that a lot of that came from my background in education and, of course, when you and I was working with college students, and there's so much, it's so similar to what we were just talking about. There's so much possibility in front of a college student and I think my grandmother would. I don't have many memories with her, she died when I was quite young, but I always remember that she would say young is beautiful. You know when we would be kind of we'd beat ourselves up like, oh, my butt looks so big in these pants, or you know whatever, and she would say you're beautiful, you're young, you're beautiful. And I think that that is something that we don't see, right, we don't see in ourselves. And now, you know, I'm in my 40s and I look back and I say, oh, my God, I was beautiful, you know.

Amanda: 7:24

You think, why do we not embrace these moments of beauty and hope and joy and clarity? It's because we get so lost in the murder hornets and we get so lost in, you know, what is happening in our, our world in terms of politics and health, and I think it's really easy to lose sight on what we really should be focusing on, which is where we're trying to go together. What is the point of a protest? To make sure that everyone can experience the same joy and the same empowerment and that we all have equal access to those. What is the purpose of college? Sometimes, I can tell you to students it feels like you're just getting beat up, you're busy all the time, you're broke. But what is the purpose? So that we can move forward and figure out who we can be, so we can blow our own minds right. I couldn't believe I did that, but look what I have accomplished. Minds right. I couldn't believe I did that, but look what I have accomplished.

Amanda: 8:19

And when I started working with authors as an author myself, it really caused me to reflect a lot, because I've always been a pretty naturally talented writer. I don't say that to be braggy just is what it is. But it wasn't that easy for me to start writing books. And once you get a couple books under your belt, you really forget what it was like before you got to the first book and I was scared to death. It just feels like oh my gosh, who am I to write this book? Who cares what I think?

Amanda: 8:51

But what it took for me was having one of my colleagues push me over and over and over and say this is a book, we have a book. We have got to get this book out here. And that colleague was Dr Andre E Johnson, who was my co-author for our first book on Black Lives Matter back in 2018 and is my co-author for this most recent book as well for this most recent book as well. So what I wanted to do for other people was what he had done for me, and I started practicing that, of course, in my classroom, but I also started to see that the authors I worked with really needed a lot of support to come forward and share these gifts with the world.

Audra: 9:28

Well, I find it really interesting that you started with college students, that that is your expertise as college students, because just now, just being on the other side of my kids graduating from college, I will tell you that it was the hardest to parent them in college. And I know that's going to blow some people's minds, but it is true. Because when they're younger, you just tell them to go to their room, you point and they march. I mean that's just how it is. I mean it gets a little bit rougher with teenagers, but you can always hold them back because you hold the keys to the car. You literally hold the keys to the kingdom.

Audra: 10:07

So there's a lot more restraint that you can put on your kids when they're younger. When they're in college, all those same tricks do not work. They're also just being flooded with information, they're being flooded with feedback and they're trying to figure out who they are. And I will say that the most self-doubt that I had to help navigate through with my kids was when they were in college, because they had too much information, they had too much access and I found that that was when their self-confidence was eroding a little bit, because I no longer was the filter. We no longer held the reins they did, and I can see how, not being guided correctly, that could be perpetuated into as you become an adult.

Amanda: 11:10

Yeah, well, I mean, I want to ask you this Did you always know, though, that your kids could do it, that they'd be okay, yeah?

Audra: 11:19

I knew in my heart of hearts that they would be okay. That doesn't mean that I wasn't terrified for them every single day. I didn't tell them and say did we give them everything they need? Are we doing enough? Are we doing too much? But I did always know that they would be okay, that they would be better okay than okay, if they would just breathe and believe in themselves a little bit, just a little.

Amanda: 12:01

Yeah Well, I think that's such an important point. Right Is that when we are in the thick of our struggles, whatever that might look like, whether that is a national pandemic or whether that just is something that happened in our lives was not what we thought it was going to be right. We took a job. It didn't turn out the way we thought. We picked a college didn't turn out the way we thought, whatever it might be. We all have these different scales of struggles that we go through, and when you are in the thick of it, all you can see is the bad right. All you can see is like I don't even know how I'm going to get to the next day. You know, but other people around you, and especially people that approach you with love, they can always see it right. It's just we're afraid to ask. I will. I want to share because I I like to use this with my clients and I think that your listeners could benefit too.

Amanda: 12:56

One of my favorite little confidence boosters and I ask a lot of authors to do this is pick out a couple friends. Maybe you know, if you've got three to five, that's great. If you've got one or two, that's fine too the people who are your cheerleaders. It might be your mom, it might be your best friend, it might be you know somebody that you knew in high school and you just kind of check in every once in a while, text them and ask them what is the most interesting thing you've ever learned from me? And it will blow your mind, because we get so in the weeds of the next thing we're trying to do. And what I find when I do this exercise is people will say the simplest things to me. They will say things so these are true things that I've had people text me back. They will say I have learned from you that you can do anything you want to do if you are persistent enough, which is true.

Amanda: 13:48

I am very stubborn and I refuse to let anything get me down. I've had people say the most interesting thing I've learned from you is how important it is to be careful with people's pronouns and identities and be respectful of them nouns and identities and be respectful of them. That is not even something I think of anymore. That is just something I adopted as an ethic years ago, but I couldn't see it right.

Amanda: 14:11

I was trying to get through my day to day and my friend said no, that's such an important thing that you're teaching people. I've had people say the most important thing I've learned from you is to bring joy into every situation, which, of course, like makes me want to sob. That's such a sweet thing to say, and I've heard from people the most interesting thing I've learned from you is how to be funny in times of crisis. That's kind of just my personality, you know, but whoever you are, you've got stuff like that and those are the things we forget, and that's the reason that we need our communities around us to remind us that they can see in us all of these good things, even when we are just in the pit.

Audra: 14:49

Well, I mean, adulting is not for the faint of heart. I will tell you that. I tell the kids all the time adulting sucks, it sucks. It never gets any easier, ever. You just get more experienced with it because life just keeps coming, because the alternative is worse, that's true as to how to react and respond to what does happen, and that is the key. But what I think is super interesting is that we can get caught up in the response and the reaction and go on autopilot but then forget about the specialness and the uniqueness of each individual, because it starts to become common only to yourself. But it does start to become common of oh, that's no big deal, I do that all the time or you're really impressed by that. That's just super easy for me. And you start to really devalue your own self-worth and, like I said, coming back to this gift that you have of being able to see the brilliance in each and every individual as they come to you is just that's an amazing gift to the world in and of itself.

Audra: 16:17

So when these authors are coming to you and they are, I mean, let's face it, creatives, and now I consider myself a creative. I never knew I was, but I absolutely am. We're weird little people. We have so many ideas going in our heads all the same time. So I have all these ideas. Combine it with a type A personality and you do not want to be in my head. My head's a nightmare. But there's always this doubt of is that really any good? Who do I think I am, who's going to listen, or who's going to like this, or who's this, that and the other thing, but you cut through all of that. So how do you respond to your authors that come to you in a ball of nerves and self-doubt?

Amanda: 17:04

Yeah, oh, my gosh. Well, I mean it's relationships and it's community. But let me give a couple of examples and I'll say as a clarification too, really because most of the people we work with don't consider themselves authors. In fact, actually, a lot of people that come to us will say well, I have a story to tell, I'm just not a writer. We really see our mission as helping make sure that everyone has access to storytelling, everyone has access to sharing their ideas in a book, even if you don't have the time and money and, frankly, motivation to go to school and get an MFA. We believe that it just makes sense to write communally so that you bring the story, we bring the craft together. We're going to make something that's really, really beautiful, and I wanted to clarify that because I think one of the stories that helps illustrate this so well this has been some time ago.

Amanda: 18:02

I worked with a woman who was a former Olympian, which most of us like. Can you even imagine? I can't even imagine it. No, sports is not my bag particularly, but it was for her. It was such a connection.

Amanda: 18:17

This was a non-disclosure project, so I can't give a lot of information, but I will say this is in talks with Netflix so you'll be able to see it. You might be able to put together who this is. Anyway, as we were working together and she was not a writer, she said you know, she writes kind of other things for her business, but as far as a book wasn't going to be for her, so we did ghostwriting with her and all that entails is we spend a couple of months first getting the story. So either me or we have other interviews as well that will ask you all of the questions you can share all the stories, all the ideas you want to get out there, but the magic happens when we start to feed it back to you. So those conversations, they just usually feel like chatting People kind of. Sometimes people will say like, oh, I don't know if you even have any information, because they'll kind of forget what they've shared.

Amanda: 19:10

Right, once the chapters start coming to them, it can be so profound and with that, with the Olympian in particular, we sent that first chapter back. She wrote back. I could not stop crying reading this and it was this beautiful story of how she came to sports, how she and her brother and she was a woman of color how she and her brother would watch television and just look for themselves in different sports arenas, and I find that to be such a profound memory. It had become so commonplace to her that she didn't realize how special it was until we reflected it back to her.

Amanda: 19:53

And that, I think, is such a gift for us to be able to give that to somebody. It's, I hope it is a gift, and I believe it is a gift for our clients, but I see it as a gift to myself too, because that doesn't take anything really. All that special right, we're all trained writers, we all have learned to structure a book, we've all learned to write engaging, vivid scenes. But really the gift is to be able to take the story apart from the person, write it in a powerful way and help them to see how powerful that story is.

Audra: 20:29

That just gives me chills because, as you had said, she became numb to her own greatness because she just kept doing it over and, over and over again and she was probably comparing herself and saying, okay, this is good, but it's not great. I need to keep pushing myself because it needs to be great and because you fall short of that idea of what greatness is in your head, you think that what you're doing isn't phenomenal and it isn't good enough. But there might be somebody else watching you going. How in the world do you do that?

Amanda: 21:06

Exactly right, exactly right, or, I think you know. In her case in particular, she was inspired by other women who had were in the athletic arena. Right, she was watching them. What did they think of themselves? You know? And I think that the the really interesting thing that happens when we start, when we have somebody to reflect back our greatness on us, is we start to see the possibilities in it.

Amanda: 21:31

When you're type A, when you're an achiever I am too it's always like what's next, what's next, what's next, and we so often just skip the celebration. I really try to keep celebration central in my life, but I'm as guilty of it as anybody else. Right, we miss out on really embracing the joyfulness, but when we can see how powerful our story is, it opens up all of these avenues to help other people, and that's a celebration. That is such a celebration, and I'll share another example. I love to talk about our authors.

Amanda: 22:07

One of our authors, victor James Hill. His book is called the Ignorant Man's Son. You can buy it wherever books are sold. It's a fantastic story of a social organizer who saw a gap in his community and wanted to help the community's children. So one of the this is not a spoiler.

Amanda: 22:22

But one of the really essential setups in that book is that Victor had been really going down a pretty terrible path. He shares in the book that you know he was a maintenance person for an apartment building and he had gotten into this habit where when he would go in to repair things if the people were gone at work he would just look through their stuff and often you know he was looking a lot of times for marijuana. He was like I got so good at just taking a little bit of marijuana and piling the pile back up so no one could tell it was gone, but he kind of hated himself for doing that right. The whole book is about how he overcame that and then stretched a hand back to help the next people in line, right, the next people that were going to be going down the same path that he was, to let them know that there was a better way that they could uplift instead of, you know, taking all the time. I don't think that book was out for more than two or three weeks before he got the first letter from the prison system of someone saying I grew up in that neighborhood and I don't know if you remember me, but I remember you and this book showed me that I can do things with my life, that when I get out of here I can do something so great.

Amanda: 23:39

He knew his story was powerful, of course, but I don't think he anticipated that. That is an amazing, amazing gift to be able to lift someone out of really the most difficult position you can be in right Coming out of prison. It's so hard to get a job. You have probably lost family and friends. Your community either is going to be behind you or they're going to totally leave you behind. It is such a difficult place to be in and for him to share that story. It gave him such a different view of what his life could mean for others.

Audra: 24:16

By design, our lives are supposed to be blueprints for someone else. Your life may not be identical to somebody else's, but there may be an aspect of what you have done that may help that other person find their way. I mean, we're not designed to be these islands which, unfortunately, we now have become because of circumstances and technology doesn't help and all of that, and you know we have. There's been a little bit of separation and in that separation there's some weird emotions that start to develop. And for me personally, weird emotions started to develop which I'd never had before, but suddenly, because of circumstances, things changing whatnot. But suddenly because of circumstances, things changing whatnot.

Audra: 25:03

And I'm not alone in this, but I will share what this weird emotion is. And it's this fear of visibility, this fear of being seen, but not being seen as you know, walking down the street, but really truly being seen as your authentic self, not the representative that you send and in your stead, but really being seen as who you are. I don't know where that fear developed for me, but I did. I developed this fear All of a sudden. It came to me one day. Oh my gosh, why do I feel this way? And that's something that I've been working on since I recognized that that was an issue. Don't know where it came from, but I recognized it was an issue. So I work on it every single day to make sure that I'm being authentic and not being afraid to be seen as to who I am. Now I know that the work that you do directly helps with that as well, with not just your authors, but everybody you work with.

Amanda: 26:09

Yeah Well, I mean, I think it's really understandable and you know I would. I would say like we have to be compassionate to ourselves when we catch that kind of thing, because this is a weird world to be visible in in a way that our parents and grandparents they had their own things, absolutely. But we have this enormous pressure to be Instagrammable all the time, all the time, and that pressure is really exacerbated by the fact that if you reach a particular level of visibility, you will have trolls. It's something that I tell all authors if you are trying to make sure that everyone loves your book, you will fail at that. It is not possible. There is not a book in this world that everybody loves, right? That isn't the point. The point is that the people who need it Right, right, the other piece of that right as mean anything to the people that need it either.

Amanda: 27:39

You have now stripped all of the specialness out of your story and what To protect yourself? You won't. It's part of it, right, we have to take the plunge and get out there, and my experience is that authors, actually now those negative comments on Goodreads like those, are going to stick with you in your heart. There's, you know, nothing you can do about that. But that really, by far the larger responses are grateful responses, thankful responses, praise, excitement, people telling you what a role model you are.

Amanda: 28:13

The rewards of authorship Is it passive income? Sure, Is it increased ability to you know, go on podcast interviews and speak in public? Sure Is it more consults for your business? Absolutely, the real benefit of overcoming that fear of visibility and getting out there as an author is this profound understanding of who you are and why you're here. We don't put it in our marketing stuff I don't know if it's all that grabby and I don't think you can really understand what it's going to feel like until you're there but that is the most important piece of telling your story to me is the way that you can reach other people and it's going to tell you who you are.

Audra: 28:55

What do you think, or I should say, what would you say to people that aren't authors, that are still wearing these masks to protect themselves, cloaking themselves, because this is not just solely affecting authors or those people that are creators or anything like that. This is everybody. I think everybody has a certain degree of being seen as you really are. What is the antidote to that?

Amanda: 29:27

I mean, I would ask do you know who you are? Because I think that's usually the key to it. Right Is figuring out, and that is just quiet and stillness and allowing yourself to feel things. What I find is, once you know who you are and once you know what you want to say, then that why right, we call that a why, your why, that why is going to drive you in a way that you just can't do if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish. Right, and if you think what you're trying to accomplish is, you know, make millions of dollars, or you think what you're trying to accomplish is like be the best in my field, I don't know.

Amanda: 30:08

I question that because I think those are really great things that society really approves of, things that society really approves of. But usually what? I think, our why and our inside, this piece of us that really needs to be seen for us to feel whole. That piece is not about whether society whatever that might mean, whether society cares. That piece is about understanding why you are here on this earth, in this universe, who you are meant to serve and who you're meant to serve and who you're meant to interact with and build community with. I don't know if it's an antidote, because it's not easy.

Audra: 30:42

No, it's not easy, but I will share something with you. When you and I first met and we had this conversation, I thought, okay, this is really, really interesting. And for me personally and it was taken by a suggestion that you made to me I thought, I know I will combat this fear of visibility by peeling everything back and starting at the basics. And so I bought a journal and the first page is who am I? And I'm just writing down the things, of the things that I know absolutely are true about me. And this is harder than you think, because I'm a lot of things and I've been a lot of things that have that have changed and evolved.

Audra: 31:28

I mean, as, as the audience has listened for quite a while, they'll know that I'm an empty nester, which is a bizarre place to be.

Audra: 31:35

It is a very, very weird space. It's an exciting space, but it's also a little bit unnerving. Your foundation gets rocked and, even though it sounds silly to start at the beginning with this, who am I? It's not as easy as you think, because you have to be willing to be vulnerable with yourself and sit in the quiet to peel back all those layers and figure out who you really are, but understanding that is helping my fear of visibility, because if I can stand on that foundation of who I really know, I am all the pot shots that come to me, and they do Do not anybody get it twisted. While the audience is incredibly supportive of this effort that I'm doing, I also get tomatoes thrown at me all the time. But this helps, this helps, and it was based on a suggestion that you made to me as to this is where you start. You start simple and I think that maybe that might be a path to an antidote.

Amanda: 32:41

I agree, the thing that gets tricky and I wonder if this is your experience I love that you're doing that, by the way is that it is easy to overlook the risks of figuring out who you are. Overlook the risks of figuring out who you are. Tell me more. Yeah, and I don't want to scare anybody off from this, because truly, most things in life, there's some bad and there's some good. Right, this is absolutely worth going through, but I think it's easy to overlook the risk of defining who you are and realizing that it doesn't fit your career anymore, or figuring out who you are and it doesn't fit your relationship, or figuring out who you are and it doesn't fit your faith. There are all kinds of discoveries because we are not the same.

Amanda: 33:32

As you're saying, I started out in college. I was a theater major. I did children's theater for a while and then I just didn't want to do it anymore. Frankly, I was on a tour. It's a lot of stress. You can't really settle down. I wanted a family, so then I thought, okay, well, let's see, maybe I'll direct for a while, did that for a while. Then I went to graduate school. We're all different things at different stages in our lives, and that's the joy of it, that's the beauty of it. You can be whoever you want to, but it's a risk to do that, because you may end up having to give up some things that give you a lot of safety, even if they don't necessarily give you a lot of fulfillment anymore.

Audra: 34:12

Well, I want to know. I can't remember who said this, it might've been Brene Brown, I'm not sure but she said I know it was a female said that the cost of your new life is your old one, and I thought, oh, that's, that's a little terrifying. But at the same time you're sitting in this beautiful gilded cage that you've built for yourself and you know that doesn't feel fun either. Yeah, and it's just yeah, it's, and I think it's. It's really interesting that, as as women, we become much more introspective as we get older. Introspective as we get older.

Audra: 34:55

Right around my mid-40s, I started to think about things, not too much, because I was like I don't have time to deal with that garbage right now because I'm still in the thick of it. But now I'm almost 53. And now that's all I do is think about stuff and things that I haven't had the time or the capacity to think about before this because I was too busy trying to survive. I mean, let's face it, parenthood is survival. It's game of thrones. Sometimes it is difficult, but it takes up every capacity that you have of you Parenthood, marriage, relationships and a job.

Audra: 35:40

That's a lot. You don't have time to think about all of this, but now that's all I do, that's all my friends do, that have reached this age too. Is that all we do is think about who we are and is this what we want and what do we want? And you know, late forties, early fifties, if you take decent care of yourself, you had another 40 years to go at least. So you've got all kinds of options, and I think that the options can become overwhelming if you don't settle into, can become overwhelming if you don't settle into. Okay, what is it that I really want? Yeah, you know who am I. I mean, you had also this goes along with that whole you had mentioned this idea of the curse of expertise, which is again a cage because it holds you in place.

Amanda: 36:40

So give me a little bit more of example of what that means. The curse of expertise Well, yeah, the curse of expertise. I see the curse of expertise all over the place. You will too. The curse of expertise just simply means that we forget what we've had to learn to become an expert. So we do you podcast like it's nothing right. You've got a whole system. I went through it. You've got reminders that come out. There's, you know, the links are all set. You've got that down.

Amanda: 37:05

A lot of people have no idea where to even start. There are probably people that are listening to this thinking I'd like to start a podcast, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. What would happen? Would my partner support it if I wanted to do that? Would I have time for my kids? Would my career suffer? We come up with all these reasons that we can't get there. Those of us that you know everybody has gotten there to a point that someone else really desperately wishes that they were, and we forget that we went through all those risks. We forget that we had to be fearless at times. You had to be fearless to drop that first episode because it's terrifying.

Audra: 37:42

I have to be fearless every week when I drop an episode, because you never know, because mine are different every single week because you're like is this going to land, is it not? So, yeah, there's definitely a degree of fearlessness that I have to have every week which is both exciting and terrifying. Just so anybody, if anybody, was guessing.

Amanda: 38:03

But you get better at it, right, even though it's scary. You have strategies. You at least know you. Know how to make a high quality pot. You learn things along the way. Know how to make a high quality pot. You learn things along the way. And when we are that far down the path, it's really hard to look back to where we started, and what I find is that we typically think that whatever our expertise is, it's no big deal, right? Oh yeah, I know how to write a book.

Amanda: 38:31

I was having to remind my co-author we just did a book signing on this, on our Summer of 2020 book, and you know he's written many books too and we were just, oh, we're just kind of chatting, whatever and he said something. I mean, he was like, well, okay, I just you know, the next book I'm going to do is da-da-da-da-da, and I was like have you paused, though? Have you paused to realize how few people accomplish what we have done? And that's not meant to be like braggy or self-congratulatory, because literally everyone who is listening to this, you have a thing like that. It's just that you don't see that.

Amanda: 39:06

It's like that, and we talked about it a little, he and I, and really we both had to kind of step back and say that's true. Actually, it's something like 0.6% of the population has published a book. It is a tiny, tiny fraction. When I talk to folks who are, you know, thought leaders and they're wanting to level up, they're wanting to write a book these are the people I talk to every day so often they will say it can't be 0.6%. Everybody I know has written a book. Right, right, because you are in the thick of that, we have got to zoom out a little bit so that we can see how incredible it is, how far we've come, whether that is writing a book, whether that's starting a podcast, whether that is keeping tiny humans alive. You have done things that other people do not know how they're going to get through the beginning of it.

Audra: 39:59

That is a fact, because raising tiny humans into reasonable adults is so hard. It is so hard and my audience that's listening. I hope you're all shaking your head. Yes, because it is hard and you do it really, really well with managing all of this chaos. You are the ringleader of your own three ring circus and if you do it well, your gift is that they leave, which is both wonderful and awful at the same time. But no one can do it quite like you, because you have children that aren't quite like anybody else. So you have your own excellence and brilliance and expertise, even though you might say, well, anybody can be a parent, yeah, but not everybody can be a parent. The way you parent to that child, that's exactly right, and aren't you a better parent than you were the day?

Amanda: 40:53

that child. That's exactly right. And aren't you a better parent than you were the day that your newborn came home from the hospital? Right Like, as we go through our lives, we pick up all these little, you know little facts and tips and tricks and whatever that get lost to us in the search for more tips and tricks and tactics. But what do I do now? Stop and look back at how far you've come, because we all are always growing and we're always learning. I say with such confidence that every single person in your audience has something like this, whether they have identified it or not. All of us do that. It's just that, especially if you are a striver, an achiever, you want the next thing. We just do not recognize without some outside help which I hope we are being that for some folks, we hope so. Text your cheerleader friends too. It is so hard, without that outside perspective, to really be fair with ourselves in terms of how far we have come.

Audra: 41:55

I have a challenge for everybody who's listening, and even some of your friends that don't listen, and I'm fine with that. If they don't listen, that's great. I have a challenge for all of you, two things. One, I want you to get super quiet and I want you to write down the one thing that you are brilliant at. That's all I'm asking. One thing that you are brilliant at. The second thing, I want you to text your friends, your confidants, whatever, and do exactly what Amanda has prescribed, which is to tell you what is the one most interesting thing or the most impactful thing that you have taught them or that they've learned from you. Do those two things and, if you are open to it, send them to me and I will share them with Amanda.

Amanda: 42:45

Oh yes, Please do this. Please do this. This is so fun.

Audra: 42:50

You never know where this might go, because the power of positivity has an energy and a strength that I cannot describe to any of you. All I can tell you is that I have been on the receiving end of it, and it is an extraordinary experience. So I'm challenging all of you to do this and send them to me, and I will share them with Amanda. And if we get enough, I don't know, amanda, what could we do with that? We could do so much with that.

Amanda: 43:17

Oh my gosh. Well, we could do anything from cut it up into confetti and throw it in the air. I love to do that Outside only. Yeah, I mean truly, though the gift to me with that exercise is that I just hope y'all see yourself the way that other people see you. It's just too easy to forget.

Audra: 43:42

Yeah, everybody is brilliant. Everybody is brilliant. Amanda, this has been such an amazing time to spend with you and, as always, I never know where how this time goes by so quickly. I look at the clock and I'm like how are we at time already? But we're at time already. But before I let you go, everybody knows this is my favorite part of the show. If you've been listening for a while, you know that this is my favorite. And this is where I get to step back from the mic and allow you to have a quiet, direct, intimate moment directly with the audience, because I want you to leave them with a thought that they might take with them for throughout the rest of the day, maybe go into the rest of their week. So, amanda, I'm going to shut up and the mic is yours.

Amanda: 44:27

Well, folks, I hope that you have gotten something already out of this interview. I really I was so excited to be invited on and then to think of this idea of helping you see yourself how you are. I, you know I work with authors, but everybody deserves to feel like their story matters, and the one thing that I want you to think about is who your story could help. So your story could, perhaps it could help your children, your grandchildren. I grew up without grandparents and I have always felt that I was missing something by not being able to have my grandparents' story. Could you share your story with people in your family? Are there coworkers? Are there new you know interns or coworkers who could really benefit from hearing your story? Share it with them. Or are you somebody who has a story and you know?

Amanda: 45:19

I find that these folks, you know it in your heart that you have a story that needs to be bigger than that, bigger than one-on-one, and if that is you, if I can help you with that, I hope that you will reach out. I have a free resource that I want to share with all of you. You can go to pageandpodiumcom slash checklist. I'll share this so it can be in the show notes as well, and it is simply just a checklist to all the things that you need to do to publish an amazing memoir or story-based book of any kind. It's not as hard as you think, I promise, and there are those of us out here who want to help you and make sure that this is such a good experience for you that you come away, as I said earlier, with all of the fulfillment and clarity and pride that you deserve, based on what you've lived.

Audra: 46:06

Amanda, that's amazing and that's an incredible gift, and I encourage everybody to go and do that, if for nothing else, to give you an inventory of your greatness, because that's exactly what that is it's a checklist of greatness. So, amanda, once again, thank you so much for being here and talking about me, about this, really talking with me about this really interesting topic of seeing yourself as you really are and your potential is, rather than the box you built yourself in. So thank you for being here.

Amanda: 46:40

Oh, thank you for having me. This was great.

Audra: 46:42

And I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.