Amanda Goetz - On facing fear, choosing abundance, and how to standout as a creator!

What happens is when you do that work to understand where your thoughts are coming from, are they actually coming from 37-year-old Amanda, or are they coming from 6-year-old Amanda who had, you know, a very different fear-based or, you know, performance-based system and value programming?

Hmm.

Then you can start to get very clear on when something isn't aligned with your current version of yourself. Because if you don't do that work, sometimes you can't pinpoint why you're frustrated about something. And is it really you being frustrated or a past version of you being frustrated?

Welcome to the Undefeated Underdogs Podcast, where I unpack and narrate stories of ambitious people who turn obstacles into opportunities. My goal for this podcast is to create a platform to narrate underdog stories and maybe play a small, teeny tiny role in inspiring you. I intend to highlight the underdog mentality and make authentic conversations with people who play the long game, take action with a chip on their shoulder, and convert obstacles into opportunities. Buckle up as I'll be bringing some authentic founders, VCs, community builders, and content creators who got underestimated their whole lives, and yet they beat all the odds to become insanely successful. Now today I want to tell you a little bit about our awesome sponsor acquire.com. Selling a business is as tough as building a business. As someone who went through this process once, selling my own startup, I know the pain it takes to get to the end zone. This is where our sponsor shines. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built a solid SaaS product, acquired customers, and generating consistent monthly revenue. The problem is you're not growing for, for whatever reason, lack of focus, lack of skill, or just plain lack of interest. And you feel stuck. What should you do? The story I'd like to hear is you buckle down, somehow reignited the fire, get past yourself and the clichés and start working on your business rather than just in the business. You start building an audience, move out of your comfort zone to do sales and marketing, and in 6 months you triple your revenue. The reality isn't as simple. Situations may be different from every founder facing this crossroads. But too many times the story ends up being one of inaction and stagnation until the become business— the business becomes less valuable or worse, worthless. If you find yourself here or your story is likely headed down a similar road, I offer you a third option. Consider selling your business on acquire.com. Capitalizing on the value of your time is a smart move. Acquire.com is free to list and they've helped hundreds of founders already. Go to try.acquire.com/sharath and see for yourself if this is the right option for you. Now let's get into today's episode. Howdy folks, welcome to yet another episode of the Undefeated Underdogs podcast. I'm so grateful for this guest today joining us and grateful to you guys first of all for tuning in, listening to us. We rant about a lot of things. It's not a Mini episodes. All of my episodes are like an hour long, and I really appreciate your time and patience and attention that you give to us. But today I have one of my favorite creators joining the show. She's a marketing powerhouse, I would say. She's a founder. She's a truly inspirational figure who's continually challenging the current status quo. Without further ado, Amanda Goetz, welcome to the show. How are you feeling?

I'm good. I'm very caffeinated right now. So if I talk too fast, just like slow me down.

That's awesome. That's the energy I require. Shout out to Starbucks for giving you that energy. For folks who don't know about Amanda, which is probably like, you know, rare, but let me give you guys like an intro. Amanda is a 2x founder. She's a 3x CMO, and she's currently writing this awesome newsletter called Life's a Game. where she shares frameworks and tools to help you become more aware and present, how to handle anxiety, stress. It's pretty transparent, guys. You just have to read it because once you get a hang of it, you won't go back. It's like she's talking to you, like, you know, you're in your living room wherever you read the letter newsletter. She's also a founder of House of Wise, a luxury CBD brand. that empowers women to take control of their mental health, sleep, sex, stress, how to manage wealth, how to create wealth and whatnot. It's very empowering and she's very vocal on her Twitter. So I did really spend a lot of time researching Amanda. I'm not bragging, but I have 2 pages worth of— I don't know if you can see, people were like— worth of questions, topics. So it's amazing. Amanda tweets a lot, which is amazing because I have more pointers to talk about. But without further ado, let's get into the episode. Right off the bat, I want to talk about your very recent announcement that you did on Twitter that you're leaving a full-time job and becoming a full-time creator. So talk to me about it. And something— and one thing I really appreciate about you is You are very transparent. Everything you go through, every decision you make, every feeling you have, every thought you kind of come up with, it's kind of like, you know, you work in public with everybody. So it's not like silo, which is very amazing because I think not many people do that. So talk to me about the whole process of leaving VP of Marketing at Teal and becoming a full-time writer, doing consulting and whatnot.

Yeah, so it's been an interesting journey. Like you said, I've been a founder twice now before, and my career has gone in these cycles where I started at a big company, then I went to a startup, then I launched my own company, then I went to a big company, then I would launch my next startup, then I started doing fractional CMO work. Mm-hmm. Then I went to a big company again. And over the last year, I've been at a big company. And luckily my role was like kind of an innovation role. However, over the course of that time, I was working with my coach and really trying to figure out what do I see for like the next chapter of my career and what is lighting me up. Right. And the same things that used to light me up, don't light me up as much anymore. And I, I call it an energy audit, like figuring out the things that are giving you energy versus taking and draining your energy. And I just found that sitting in these meetings, um, not being able to produce as quickly as I wanted to, um, was draining me. And I was working at a big company that had still a lot of kind of older systems, older way of thinking and approaching things. And I was feeling really, really drained by it. And so when I did this audit, the thing that actually gives me a ton of energy right now is writing. And I have almost a 20-year career I have three kids. I've navigated a lot in my life. I've gone through a divorce, fertility treatments, you name it. Done a lot of work, and I talk a lot about you know therapy and coaching and what to get out of it. And so the act of using my experiences to connect with people and and help people is the thing that just like I would get up every morning excited to tweet and excited to. A lot of my interactions on Twitter then go to DMs where people are asking me questions about things, and that's where I get ideas for things to talk about and more things to share.

Right.

And so I had this moment where I'm— I realized that this is where I want to spend my time and energy. Now let's call it what it is. It's very scary to step away from a stable paycheck. And I grew up pretty poor. I, my parents, neither of my parents went to college. My dad's the town plumber electrician. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. And there's a lot of internal work I had to do in preparation for leaving that stable paycheck.

Right.

And saying, even though I was making money that like maybe people in my town or like even me growing up would never even think of making.

Right, right.

And to kind of feel like I was just like, oh no, I'm not gonna appreciate or be grateful for this. I had to really do a lot of that work to say, this has nothing to do with not being grateful for that. It has everything to do with just seeking alignment for what I want in my life.

Right.

And giving myself permission to be in that alignment. And then figuring out now, which is the work I'm doing now, which is like, where's my next paycheck coming from? Like, tweeting doesn't necessarily equal money. And you have to really like do that work to figure out how to take that path. So I would definitely, I have lots of thoughts on like, Would I recommend doing it the way I did it? No. But I also have had enough valid points or proof points along the way, validation moments to say, like, I can make— I have like a threshold of what I need to make every month to keep, you know, the lights on.

Yep.

And I see a very clear path to hit that number. And then everything else is going to get figured out and I'm trusting the process.

I think basically people should be very real. They should not leave the ground, but at the same time, they shouldn't stop themselves to aim for the sky. Like, there is certain level of balance. That balance is something like that figuring out is almost all the energy should go to that balance. That's it. Like, everything else is kind of like, you know, doable because some other human being did the same way, right? What many people didn't do is mentally adjusting your uncomfortableness, going like the things you did, like taking the hard decisions.

It's like, are you operating out of a place of fear or a place of abundance?

Right.

And I have in my past operated out of a place of fear where you make decisions because you're running away from something, not towards something. And now this is

like,

a very good moment in my life where I feel very convicted that I'm running towards something that is like in that realm of abundance mindset. I believe that there is more for me to do and to make.

Right. I think, yeah, I read Wayne Dyer's book, The Power of Intention, and after reading that, Before that, I have no idea of the concept of abundance. There is like, you know, there's nothing that you can aim for. You dream about like having like big dreams, which is all fine, but abundance is really powerful, right? Like you already assume that you have everything that gives you so much confidence and world becomes more positive sum instead of zero sum. And that actually changes the whole perspective. But One thing I have, like, so many follow-ups from that answer itself. Talk to me about the energy audit. What are the checks that people should do? And the kind of like a sub-question to that is, when do you actually feel like, hey, the thing I really started is exciting? Say, for example, you joined TAIL, you were super excited to join, take up the opportunity, right? For example. There is a saturation point, like, hey, I'm not feeling it. Like, you know, that's the energy audit you're talking about. So A is, are there any checks? And B, when do you like see that, okay, this is where I should jump? Like, for people who are also figuring out, you know, moving, transitioning from one path to other path, any advice?

Yeah, so let's start with the energy audit. So When you look at your— let's start with your to-do list. You have a to-do list of things you need to get done. Where you go first and where you want to jump into first usually gives you a signal of where you're excited. Um, the second thing is look at your calendar and where are you spending your time and where do you want to be spending your time? And if you look at your calendar and you feel dread because of the work you're about to do, like for me, on a day where I have less meetings, I have writing time, I have chats with people where I'm getting to connect with somebody new, I am pumped. I have so much energy. I'm drinking my coffee. I feel good. If I am sitting in meetings that are talking about For me, like processes and getting someone on board and having to like convince somebody to do something. I, I just like, it's, uh, zapped all energy from my body.

Right.

So that's the second thing. And then the third thing I would say is when you're in alignment, like I speak a lot about alignment. Like, you're very aware of, of like, what is like, how best to explain this? Doing the internal work to understand why you gravitate towards things and why you make certain decisions. A lot of internal work is about making the subconscious conscious.

Hmm.

We have a lot of programming in us that wasn't necessarily ours. It was given to us, whether it was given to us by Generations, like our passing down of our parents, grandparents, whatever, given to us by society, what we think we should be doing. So a lot of that programming. And when you do the work to really, I call it like reprogram yourself. My therapist talks a lot about this. She's like, you have outdated software. You just need to upload a new software system.

Right.

Right. So, and I love her for that because that's a really great framing for me.

Sure.

To say, cool, this is just outdated software. I now have to do the work to install new software. And what happens is when you do that work to understand where your thoughts are coming from, are they actually coming from 37-year-old Amanda or are they coming from 6-year-old Amanda who had you know, a very different fear-based or, or, you know, performance-based system and value programming.

Hmm.

Then you can start to get very clear on when something isn't aligned with your current version of yourself. Because if you don't do that work, sometimes you can't pinpoint why you're frustrated about something. And is it really you being frustrated or of a past version of you being frustrated. So I think a lot of people jump to this, like, this isn't right, thus I need to change it. And you have to kind of sit in that this doesn't feel right moment and really understand why. Mm-hmm. Like, keep getting curious, like, why doesn't it feel right? And, and it took me 6 months to step away from a my 9 to 5, doing that work very actively.

Right. And the courage part, which is what I want to really ask about, which is it takes a lot of courage to let go something that you already are very comfortable with, be it a job, be it being in a relationship, whatever it is, right? Where do you people should find that courage? Is there, is there a method that you practice over time? You had like a lot of hardships, a lot of lows. You explained that, you know, big divorce and everything else, right? Where did you find that? Like, is there a focal point? Like, hey, anytime I hit like some sort of low and I fell down, this is where I go immediately.

There's no trigger point for a lot of this stuff. I wish there was. It got— I wrote about decision-making and how kind of I have a framework that I definitely use and I go through when I'm making big decisions. But the things that I will say about decision-making are, one, Indecision is decision, right? You are choosing not to go down a path and you're choosing to sit in this limbo. And I think a lot of people paralyze themselves in that realm of indecision. And what I would really empower people to think if they're sitting in this kind of purgatory phase of life right now, To really understand that there are no right or wrong decisions. There is the decision you make, and then all of your energy goes towards making that decision the right one for you. So whether I chose to stay in a relationship or leave it doesn't matter. It's it's the work that I did afterwards to say that was the right one for me. And, and that's number one. Number 2 is making decisions out of an emotional place is the worst way to make a decision.

Mm-hmm.

And so something as big as, you know, leaving a job or getting a divorce, you'll, you'll hear the through line, which is It took me 6 months to leave my job. It took me a year of doing the work to make sure that it wasn't out of an emotional place. And I remember like the first time I went to therapy was when I realized I wanted a divorce. And my therapist looked at me and she said, and I'm like bawling and I'm saying all this stuff and I'm like, I want a divorce and I don't know what to do. And she's looked at me and she said, when you can say that without crying, then we'll talk. And she's like, right now let's just focus on like understanding why and asking yourself questions and getting you to a place that like, you know, you feel more stable ground. And I just think that's really interesting because whether you're deciding to end a friendship or to, you know, end a situationship, which, you know, I've also been dating for 6 years, like I know what that's like. And it's almost harder than getting a divorce. But all of these things have to be made out of a place of like logic, not emotion. And so that's the second thing. And the third thing is like truly, truly understanding that there's a blast radius of every decision and trying to limit that, like understanding how your decision will affect your finances, the people in your life, your stress, your stability, and weighing those against one another. The other. Yeah. So there's a lot of things with decision-making that it's not so black and white, but if you have the tools, you know, you can go through this process. And then the last thing is whenever I make a big decision, I, I commemorate it. I say like, this happened. I, I usually write— it's a little woo-woo, but I'll like write down all the things I'm releasing. So like, for example, career. Like me getting off the corporate bandwagon. 25-year-old Amanda wanted to be the CMO of a Fortune 500 company.

Right.

I wanted to have a massive Name next to my LinkedIn status. Yeah.

Right.

And I was on that path. Like the companies I kept being CMO of kept getting bigger and bigger.

Right.

And so I had to write a note to myself to say, I am releasing myself of that goal.

Right.

Which comes with its own feelings.

Mm-hmm.

And saying, because I believe like this is my new path. And truly just identifying the things that you will give up and you will mourn and you will say, that doesn't feel great, but I'm okay with it. I know that that's the trade-off I'm making.

I love the 4-step process you explained. And also, I think to add your point, when we make these big decisions, I think we should be surrounded by a support system. It can be like for you, you said you have family, therapist. They are your cheerleaders, right? having yourself, uh, kind of like a safety net in terms of people, or really, that really helps accelerate the decision-making and makes you feel confident, right? Uh, it does.

I will just to add to that though, one thing I have noticed with friends, and I'll say this, and this is a huge proponent of why you should have an independent third party helping you assess things Many friends are mirrors and they will mirror whatever. If you give the slightest inclination that you want to leave your job or you're unhappy or you're mad at this guy and you want to end the relationship, they will mirror that and they will give you every reason why you should do that and why they support you. Right. Which is great. But you need someone who's less of a mirror and more of like a magnifying lens to actually help you identify and get closer to the why behind things. So I, I just say that as be cautious of who you're getting advice from. And the last thing I'll say is form your own opinions before you take others in.

Mm-hmm.

Because Processing with people can be a very, very dangerous thing to do when you haven't formulated your own kind of point of view on something. So I'll say, like, even with my partner now, if something's bothering me or if I'm stir— like something is stirring, I'll say, this isn't fully baked. Mm-hmm. Let me go bake it and come back to you with something.

Right.

Because it's not his job to be my therapist or to do that work. Like that's on me. So just a couple of cautionary things when, with your support system.

Yeah, you should, you should definitely have a stance. If there is no stance, then you'll become like Mercury. You basically People mold, you mold. People say this, you mold to that. So it's definitely not a— probably works short-term but not a long-term solution. Let's go back a little bit and let's talk about— I think you did a lot, but I just want to highlight a couple of things in this podcast, mostly about previous work. Talk to me about House of Wise. So It's not like a— it's not a SaaS, like a software company. It's not an agency, like where you provide services. It's a D2C. It's very like trendy, very important, especially targeting empowering women. Why in the first place? Like, you know, talk to me about the foundational story of, you know, House of wise and why like that route? Did you try anything else and then you finalize, okay, this is the path to go?

I always say that there's 2 types of founders in the world. There's people who are like, I'm just born to be a founder and I don't know or care what I'm going to build. I'm just going to be a founder. And then there are people like me who, first time I built a company, it's because I was in the industry for 8 years and I saw a pain point and I wanted to solve it. Second time I built a company, it's because I was going through something and I saw a pain point and I wanted to solve it.

Mm-hmm.

And so the origin story for House of Wise is that, you know, I'm going through my divorce, I'm at the height of my career, I have 3 kids under the age of 4, and I'm juggling all of that. And I had never touched cannabis or really anything. The only socially acceptable thing in my mind was alcohol.

Mm-hmm.

And Yet I started to realize that as the stress of my life was really kind of coming down on me, my anxiety was going through the roof. And the more I would like have that glass of wine at night, it would disrupt my sleep. My anxiety would be even worse the next day. And yet when I would try different products, like this is when CBD was kind of still like, you're learning about it. What is it? Is it— does it get you high? Does it not? There was just like a lot of products on the market that were geared towards somebody who already used cannabis.

Right.

Or you had no clue what was in it and where it came from and was there any research behind it. So I saw this opportunity to empower women to make space for themselves in their day. And I started working on this a year before COVID and I was just really toying with the idea. I had met with a ton of growers. I had met with a lot of labs who were really studying cannabinoids and what they do and the different strains. And then COVID hit and I saw all of my friends just drinking so much more alcohol than they'd ever drank and experiencing new depths of low. And so that was the kick I needed to go raise a pre-seed round, still had my day job. So I did this in nights and weekends.

Wow.

But get the formulations done and get the packaging done and get the brand done. And gear up to launch it. And I had a very unconventional path because I did not step away from my very big role to be a full-time founder. I baby stepped it. I went from a full-time role to— I raised the pre-seed round, kept that full-time role until it was getting closer to a public launch.

Hmm.

Then I found a half-time CMO role. At a startup, so then I went to 20 hours a week where I still had insurance and a paycheck, and launched House of Wise. Kept that for five more months, and then we raised our big round, our two million dollar seed. That then enabled me to go all in and give myself a paycheck and to you know be fully focused. And I was just very upfront with everybody that supported me in that and all the founder or all the investors to say. If you want to see more representation in the founder world, you have to understand that there's going to be different paths. And

I

like that. If you want more women, if you want more parents, if you want more minorities, like not everybody has that same safety net. And so I would say that, and I think people had these aha moments where they're like, yeah, this is That there is so much truth in that,

right?

So I had a very unconventional path, and then you know we launched the company, and I just sold it last summer.

Congrats! Yeah, big congrats on that.

Thank you. It was um it was the right thing for the company, the right thing for the brand, right thing in this given climate. Being a CPG founder is is difficult right now,

right?

Um and so it was a really It was the best thing for everyone involved.

I love what you said previously about being very transparent. This is my situation. This is not traditional, typical, you know, founder path you might encounter with everybody else, because one, you're clearly setting an expectation, and number two, whoever is in, that means that you're working with them as a team. There is no— you're not loaning money from them. They really want you to succeed because they empathize with you, right? Like, generally, that's the perfect founder-investor fit, like, you know, in my opinion, because there is no beating the bush. You show all the cards. This is how it is. If you want to come on board, come on board, right? I love and I'm so happy for you the way you, you know, I love unconventional stories because you have the command and grip you are doing with conviction, right? You are the person on the upper hand. It's not you're taking someone else's hand. I love that. I have a couple of more follow-ups, but talk to me about— you're big on marketing. You're big on— let's talk about like some of the tactical stuff people really crave about the brand strategy, the marketing strategy, especially building a D2C brand and you advise a lot of startups as you're also like an angel investor, right? So talk to me about current marketing tone that people are adapting due to AI and whatnot. Brands being people is a big concept. So talk to me about that and how you incorporated in House of Wise and how you advise founders to do the same.

Say that a little bit. So how are brands incorporating AI or kind of this idea of human elements versus like what's happening with AI?

Yeah. Human elements with what's happening with AI, because there are like, they're divided right now. Brands picking their marketing strategies, literally using AI. Hey, come up with a brand strategy and executing it, which is not wrong. And there is this other set where really, like, people are putting their hearts out and kind of doing human work, right? And which I think you did for House of 5. So talk to me about the both sides.

Yeah, well, the shift is happening like that. I truly see this, like, when you look on Twitter, the rise of gurus and templates and how I did, how I built X in this many days and how I did this much money and these steps and you can too. Like there's all of this like kind of rise in the creator economy. Mm-hmm. Which my friend Kate, she uses this term hope vultures. And I love that because it's truly what it is. It's people kind of Really being predator— predatory on people wanting to make money. They want to figure out how to grow fast. They want to do it really quickly. So with this rise of all of this content being put out there, I think we're going to see the, the kind of counterbalance. With every pendulum swing, we always have the reverse happen. You see it over decades. When we go super far one way, we will try to course correct the other way. And right now, yes, AI is being used to generate a lot of stuff, which I think is also causing our human brains to now have this like immediate lens of distrust. And we are seeking connection.

Hmm.

You can tell, like, I, I, I've used ChatGPT to try to generate content, and unfortunately it isn't my voice.

Hmm.

And you can train it to be somewhat more, but you always will have to— like, it doesn't— ChatGPT does not know what happened in my divorce or what happened to this morning with my kids. It cannot infuse the personal narratives, which are actually what's connecting people. Like,

Right.

The reason Nike is so good at marketing is because they hit an emotional level that you cannot generate from AI. Now, what is AI great for right now? Systems and like getting things done very quickly. And I'm still learning, but there's like AI Solopreneur that I'm obsessed with that that newsletter because he breaks everything down really tangibly. There are so many things you can use it for to go faster.

Right.

But we as a society post-COVID crave human connection more than ever. And as a marketer, I advise brands to tap into that. First and foremost, like, people aren't going to be as pumped that you have something done with AI as they are. When we saw this with, with NFTs and Web3,

we

saw this massive wave of like, everything's going to be on the blockchain, everything has to be decentralized, people want to own their data.

Right.

People are struggling to get by right now.

Mm-hmm.

Like, we build for this like 1% community and people forget that, like, I'm from Middle America. Mm-hmm. Like, there's, there are so many people who aren't thinking about AI. Mm-hmm. They're not thinking about NFTs. They're not thinking about the blockchain. They're thinking about how am I going to make my car payment? How am I going to give my kids braces? So, as a marketer, you have— there's a, there's a phrase, does it play in Peoria? If it plays in Peoria, you can Google it. It's a very well-known advertising phrase.

Hmm.

I'm from Peoria, Illinois.

Hmm.

And it— they say that phrase because like it's the most like representative of central, uh, the middle of, of America. And if it plays there, then that means like It will be mass-wide adopted. And I just think that we who eat, sleep, breathe tech and startups and we're on Twitter, you have to remember we are a very small percentage of the population. And will people get ahead and use AI and leapfrog people? Yes, just like some people did with crypto. There are many crypto billionaires and millionaires that were made during that bubble, that 2017, right?

Yeah.

But that is such a small percentage and you cannot build and shift your entire marketing strategy around a 1%, right?

And that's, that's what I think a lot of people should focus on, like founders especially. Majority, not minority. And in your opinion, if you were to like, uh, give some pointers How do you want to attack the majority, especially from a content standpoint, brand messaging, generally overall as a brand? Do you have anything that you've learned from House of Wise? Like, these are the things people should actually pay attention to. Be it like human emotion is definitely one. I want to explore any other elements that you discovered building that very human brand.

Yeah. Well, it all starts with your why and like your mission and your purpose. I think a lot of people try to pin the tail on the donkey, like purpose after they've already launched. They start with a product and they say, this is the product. Now how do I get people to buy this product? And it's like, no, you're not selling a product. You're selling an emotion, a connection, a way of life.

Right.

A feeling. And as a marketer, I always start with that kind of non-product piece. Like, true, I always start with a brand pyramid. And I start, yes, you're gonna have features and products, but like, then you move up the pyramid and you say, okay, what emotional attributes are you giving somebody? And then what like lifestyle are you giving somebody all the way up to like, what is truly the reason for your being? How are you making someone's life better?

Mm-hmm.

Um, or different. And so I always start there and then work into the, the messaging of, okay, now how does that come to life? Like, it was super— with House of Wise, we wanted the top of our pyramid, the essence was helping women make space and take up space. So it was around permission. And so everything that we did, now that we have this, like, why do we exist? Well, when she pops a sex gummy, she's now giving herself permission to experience pleasure.

Hmm.

If she pops a strength gummy, she's now said to herself, I deserve to go get a workout in today. Right. So yes, it's a product, but it has so much more of this. Sorry, the sun is going in and out. So you can

see it's

like over here. But so we've now given her permission. And now we say, well, what, what brands would we partner with? Or what content strategy? Or what influencers are we going to work with that align with that mission? And everything stems from that. What, what podcasts am I going to speak on? Will that person help talk about this? Do they align with this? Um, so yeah, everything has to stem from that. Why do you exist?

I love that. I think quoting Simon Sinek, he always say that start with why, and you know, don't sell the product, sell an emotion. Like examples, Apple, Nike, You know, Apple sells creativity.

Very Marketing 101, right? It's like basic. We're not selling a product.

And anything that you recently discovered by just being a consumer, not a creator or a founder, like, wow, like just the way Simon Sinek's 101 is somewhere else that you were like, okay, wow, this is really fascinating.

Hmm, I've been so heads down. I got— I actually need to think about what have I bought lately that's not a kid's toy. I mean, honestly.

I love that.

I know. The brands that I am— I spend more of my money on. Well, okay, let's talk about 2. Shopify, for example, like I As a founder and a small business owner, when I think about who is truly empowering small businesses, like Shopify comes to mind. Yeah. And they care so deeply. Like Harley, he's very active on Twitter. Like I was a small brand compared to what they have on Shopify. And one time I had to, I tweeted out like I was struggling with something. He immediately responded and connected me with someone. Like just people who genuinely care. And to me, their mission of, you know, empowering small business owners, the fact that he took the time, or, you know, I'm pretty sure it was him unless it was his assistant.

Maybe.

But like the fact that whoever operates his account, he took the time to monitor to see if any people, anybody had questions. So that truly means that he's connected to the small business owner.

So

that's number one. Number 2, Legos. I am like the Lego world. I spend so much money on Legos. But I recently— this is kind of tangential, but I bought a non-Lego Lego set. You know what I mean? Like, it was like the—

Like a bootleg Lego set.

I was like, all right, Legos are pretty expensive. I'm gonna buy my son the Pikachu that is not Lego, but they click together.

Right.

We threw it away after like 20 minutes because it was so frustrating. Even just the way the instructions are done with Legos is so easy to follow. And if you've ever like paid it, I do a lot of Lego building. Like they'll make something a different color, not because it needs to be, but just to make it easier for you to know where it needs to go, even if it's gonna be hidden.

Right

underneath other Legos.

Right.

They are so thoughtful in how they do it. And I think like Lego has the opportunity to really come back and say like, this is a mental health thing. I would love to be CMO of Lego to like help say like every adult, like the only way I can like get this thing off out of my hand half the time.

Yeah.

Is to sit down and do Legos and make my hands busy,

right?

So there's— those are 2 that like come to mind, um, but I'm sure I'll think of more.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think probably, you know, that might give you more ideas to tweet. Uh, I think, yeah, Legos are really amazing because they bring the creator out of you. Everybody who uses Legos are creators because they're creating something out of nowhere from a, you know, building blocks, right? I love that. I know we've talked about like a couple of— you've done many podcasts and you've given so many advice on marketing, and so that's why I'm not talking about those. But I really want to ask this now that you are in the third phase of your life, which is, one, you were an operator before, a startup operator. Two, you were a founder, two-time founder. Three, now you're entering into the creator economy, creator persona, right? Talk to me about like, uh, maybe like 1 to 2 lessons from each persona that you universally apply for everything. Like, as a creator, what, what, what are you applying as of, you know, from the founder experience, from an operator?

Yeah.

And whatnot. And what do you like the most? That's one thing.

Great question. Let me start with, okay, so when I worked as an operator, worked at big companies, I'll say the thing that's like been a through line now through everything I've done is no one's looking out for your career except you. Like truly. And you have to be your biggest advocate. You have to hold your own spotlight over you. Because at a big company, I learned very quickly that the more I managed up, the faster my career went up.

Hmm.

And so you can work your tail off, but your boss sees 10% of that,

right?

If depending on what your boss oversees. Right. So making it very clear what you're doing. And then that led to being a founder and building, like building in public and sharing stuff. Right. Because no one knows what you're doing.

Sure.

If you don't advocate for yourself.

Right.

Um, you may think that that Forbes article, everyone's gonna see it. Right. No, like you have to put it out there.

Yeah.

So that's, I would say, the thing I learned from that, from Founder World. So the mistake I made the first with my first company that I tried to kind of rectify my second is I rode the highs too high and the lows too low. And the, the, you know, point A to point B in my first company that was such a drop or extreme climb. My second company, I just stayed pretty neutral. Cool. Kardashians all talked about us and posted us online. Cool. Oh, we might run out of money in a month. Cool.

Yeah.

Like, you just have to stay in this middle ground. And as a creator, it's like, Moving into this world of like a lot more unknowns,

right? Uncertainty.

I have to just stay like right here because the more you allow yourself to spiral down, it's— it doesn't help anything. And you'll start to just like be like, oh, I gotta take this, I gotta take this. And all of a sudden your calendar's full and you can't actually work on the thing that you want to do that's your long-term success. So I would say that's the thing that I've learned being a founder. And now as a creator, I think the thing that I appreciate more than ever is the role of hard work, but autonomy.

Freedom.

Every time I go back to the, I'm my own boss, I am in charge, no one's looking out for what I'm doing. that's when I work the hardest. And I find that even though I'm in charge of my own calendar, it's the hardest season for me to make space for myself.

Sure.

And my relationships and my kids, because I feel this like pressure to that like, well, no one else is looking out for this. Like, I have to move it forward. And so the thing that as like going into content creator world is like, Trusting the, the need for rest and breaks and knowing that that's equally as important.

Right. I love the— I think all 3 personas, you're basically doing stuff, right? Like, you're progressing. And I, I love the common theme in all 3 personas. What do you like the most now that you've experienced all 3? Like, hey, this is really amazing. Fascinating. It's

like picking a favorite child here.

I know. I kind of know the answer, but—

Well, here's the thing. They've all supported one another, and this is why I've gone— my career has been big companies, startup, big companies, startup. What I learned working for Mike Stibe, who's now CEO at Artsy, but he came from Google, was the CEO of The Knot. What I learned from that executive team and Gillian Munson, who was our CFO, went on to be CFO of Duolingo and all massive companies. I learned operational excellence at a level that I would've never learned staying in the startup world. Most people who are startup founders have never been at a big company. They are founders. Right.

Yeah. They start small.

So they start small. They just start building, which is great. But I managed a team of 50 people. I had to learn how to communicate a vision and a strategy, provide clear lanes for everyone. that people could go do their work, be autonomous, understand how it ladders up to a bigger vision.

Right.

But also, I learned in those roles, like influencing without authority. Like, I wanted to move mountains in that company. I needed product, I needed engineering, I needed legal, all to be on board with some of the things I wanted to do. So, the role of influencing without authority. Like, I didn't dictate what their roadmap was, but I had to figure out how I could.

Right.

And so I have just such a love for what I learned in that like 5 to 6 years of my career that I couldn't have built House of Wise as quickly as I did. And, and with women who— we had a lot of just like fractional employees who were like, Moms, they had quit their jobs and they were just like doing something on the side. But being able to manage a lot of fractional employees, I had that skillset from— and then House of Wise opened up so many doors for me to build in public and to figure out what my voice was online. And so now it's like I get to now take all of that into this next chapter.

Right.

So that's why it's hard for me to say which one's my favorite, because if I said now, I love what I'm doing now, but I couldn't have done it without these experiences.

I think everything compounds, right? Everything adds to the next thing we do. So let's talk about Life's a Game. I'm sure— I'm hoping that you didn't reveal all the secrets to other shows. So hopefully this is like a platform for people, like, you know, how you write and whatnot. It's an anti-hustle newsletter. It talks about really, like, reminds me mostly about how to present, how to be present, how to actually play with my kid, 2-year-old toddler. I have a toddler, be present with him, enjoy the time, as well as, of course, mentally, how can I challenge myself to up my game? Talk to me about the purpose. How did you end up picking this versus you could have started like a newsletter around building a, you know, D2C company or D2C because it's so tactical. Everybody would have craved for it. Why the intangible? Why the meta? And why now?

Yeah, um, so many people told me not to, to go broad. They're like, you're a marketer, write about marketing,

right?

And Going broad is the slowest way to grow and to achieve any form of monetization. There's a phrase, the riches are in the niches, right? So staying niche, niche, right? Um, where you can make a lot of money, you're known for a singular thing. I again just wanted— so before I started the newsletter, I did an exercise where I wrote down, I think it was probably like 80 subject lines.

Wow.

I was just like, what? It was like a brain dump. I was like, of all the things I wanna write about, marketing, not marketing, Write as many subject lines as I could possibly think of. Then I categorized all of them, and what happened was marketing wasn't really in there. Yes, I can talk about how to build a brand. Yes, I can talk about how to figure out your channel strategy, your go-to-market strategy, how to build a campaign, how to build community. That wasn't what came out in that exercise.

That is so fascinating because. by nature, it's kind of like you're— it's you, right? Like, that's how people imagine you whenever they go to your profile or your content. We resonate you as like, okay, she's one of the best marketers. But why? How did that— did that shock you? Or like, you know?

Yeah, for sure it did, because I was like, You know, I was teaching masterclasses on brand strategy.

Right.

And that's how I was making money. But the thing that I care so deeply about is the thing you just said, which is I'm helping you find permission and time to be with your kid. And so many people, like, this is the number one regret on people's deathbeds. is that I wish I didn't work so much. I wish I was with my family more.

Yeah.

And the fact that we know this, we as a society are still pushing narratives around how to do more, be more, go further, go faster. And no, there aren't as many people saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can totally achieve success and you're going to because you have that drive. But how about it's an

and?

You can be successful and have a healthy marriage, not

an or,

and see your kid. And how do you do that? And no one's really giving the how. And again, it's because it's not very easily monetizable. Like, who, you know, it's so easy. A B2B SaaS platform's like, I want to reach Marketers, great. You have a marketing newsletter. I will sponsor it. But I did an exercise of like, what is the means to the end here? Like, what am I actually doing in this next season of life? And for me, it's about intentionality and helping people not have the same mistakes I've watched. So many people make over and over again. So that's what gets me up in the morning, and that's what I write about. And as a marketer, when I think about how you're going to be differentiated in a space, there's so many people building marketing newsletters and how to be a great marketer, whatever, how to build a personal brand. I think my, my intersection or what makes me different is it's still marketing. Like I'm still teaching you how to show up authentically online. Like today's newsletter was truly about like this, like what to talk about online if you want to take up space online. How do you figure out what that is? And it's in my unique take on that is that you can't strip yourself of your personal characteristics. That actually is what gives you your like secret sauce of whatever niche you're picking. So yeah, I went broad and it got me a book. You know, I signed with a book agent and now I'm going down this path of writing a book, which I'm super, super pumped about. Literally, you can see all of my Post-it notes.

Yeah, I can see that. I thought it was a blanket, but I now see that I wonder

what people are gonna

think when they

see like pink and yellow. No, that is literally, um, the outline of my book.

Awesome.

And, um, that's what lights me up. And that's if I can help someone say this internal battle that I have between knowing I'm meant for some really cool shit in this life and I'm not going to do that at the expense of getting the other things out of life that I know I also want. If I can help somebody find that path of how to do that, then I am completely satiated.

It's so meta. I just want to acknowledge that your why is reminding other people's why. Yeah, that's what I feel about your newsletter, right? Like, and now that I talk to you, I feel like you're so passionate about like bringing these frameworks, bringing these solutions to us, which reminds like, oh, you know what? Why am I— why the heck am I even working 50 hours, 60 hours, right? When I can really like, you know, manage, balance my time. So The niche strategy for niche is always very clear. Basically, you know the ins and outs, and mostly it's how-to guides. Mostly it's like tactical stuff that moves the needle, and content creation there can be accelerated because it's all like tactical, right? When it is a broad subject, How do you manage going from point A to point B and putting actually a stop there? Like, hey, this is where I put a stop, because it can be like anything. So the brief is do everything. How do you come up with a—

We'll find out when I— I mean, we're 3 months old, 10,000 subscribers, and I've talked about Decision-making, burnout, self-talk, and like the science behind it. Like we've jumped all over, but it all stays in this Venn diagram of personal and professional growth, you know? And I think you're right. Like if, if I created this Venn diagram, personal growth, professional growth, and in the middle it's your why.

Right.

I love that. That to me, as long as something is staying within those 2 bubbles, and lead somebody to that middle ground, it's game on.

And talk to me about the process. I'm just very curious about how do you go about writing next week's newsletter? Where do you start? Like,

so I'm actually gonna— I'm launching an office hours in October.

Yeah.

And so I'm going to take people like truly behind the scenes. I'm going to Love it. Do like a lot of Loom videos and show people, like, I sit down on a Saturday morning. So Saturday morning is what I call ideation station. I sit down and I have a document that's called ideation station that whenever a thought comes into my head, I throw it into that. And then what tends to happen is I start writing probably 3 to 4 newsletters. I will start writing like a skeleton.

Hmm.

And one of those will really grab me and I'll start to research. Like, I love including like science and, and any studies that have been done around the topic.

Mm-hmm.

So I'll start researching. And when, once I start to like really get going on one, like I'll start one and then I'm like, mm, I kind of wanna talk about this now. Or one will spark another one.

Mm-hmm.

And so by Saturday's time period, I have now selected a topic and then I go into Sunday and I write it. Monday I edit it because I'm verbose, as many can hear. So I have to cut it down by like 400 words.

Wow.

Then I program it on Tuesday. And then Wednesday is when I create the social content around it. And yeah, so that's kind of the process.

I love it. Thanks for the detailed explanation. 2 more questions on the same lines. A, it's more of like a question personally to you. Were you ever at a stage where you felt like You know what, man, this is really scary. What I'm about to do is absolutely, it's going to, you know, it's very scary. You know, it ties to my livelihood, ties to my everything, right? Like societal-wise. How do you overcome that, that fear or that phase and like, okay, now I'm becoming more confident?

There's this optimal growth chart that I always have in my head, and I put it in last week's newsletter. But this idea that no stress, you're not going to push yourself to grow. Too much stress, you're not going to push yourself to grow. Yeah. It's about finding this like middle area where there's the right amount of stress that kind of pushes you into your next mountain, your next stratosphere of your career and your life. I've done enough scary things that this is a well-trained soul,

right?

I know this feeling now, this feeling of holy shit, what am I doing? I've experienced this a few times, and when you experience it a few times, you say Oh no, this is great because whatever happens, like I have launched a company that didn't succeed and, and what happened? Oh, it opened a massive door for me to take on a role that I was way too young for in, you know, in certain views. And, and so I was like, okay, that launched me to this next level. And oh, divorce, that put me into this whole new level of growth and introspection and figuring out why.

Mm-hmm.

I did certain things and why I thought certain things and why I chose certain things. So every single scary thing that has happened in my life led to a new level. And so now, yes, I'm scared, but I also know I've been here before and I always know that it will push me into something. I don't— the fear is in the unknown. And we as humans, like our brains are literally like from a primal standpoint wired to look for stability and safety and comfort. And like, that feels not comfortable. That feels scary. No, why would we do that? That's, we gotta stay safe. Right. You're literally going against your primal instincts to do something scary. And you have to acknowledge that and say, okay, I'm going against what my body and my brain wants me to do. However, I trust that this is going to be a cool opportunity for me. And I trust that. So for me, the best thing I do in these situations is I timebox it.

Mm-hmm.

I am giving myself 1 year. I have a year of savings that I've basically set aside to say I can keep the lights on for a year, even if I don't make what I'm hitting my my threshold. I have a year to see what happens.

You have to give yourself an opportunity, a chance to try it out.

Yeah, try it out. And then a year from now, you— we may talk again in a year and I'm back being a CMO of a startup, and that's fine too. So cool, let's see what happens.

I love that attitude because I think that's a healthy attitude. trying is more important than winning, right? When we try to win, you are playing a different ball game. You're not ready for being uncomfortable. You're not ready for uncertainty because you're aiming to actually win. That's the loop that you want to close. On the other side, when you're just trying, giving yourself, setting an expectation, low expectation in this case, And timeboxing. I love that too. It's not permanent. That gives me, I think when I'm hearing what you said, I do like a lot of side projects. I have my 9 to 5 job, but I want to become a full-time founder eventually. That's the thing I'm trying to achieve. And like you said, when you timebox, okay, 2023, I'm going to launch 2 projects. With Me being, I have a 2-year-old toddler with a full, you know, it's all difficult, right? I think that is really a right attitude to make progress too. I love that. Thanks for sharing. One other thing on the other side, how do Amanda's— Amanda gets creative? How, what stimulates you to be creative in terms of getting these ideas, what you write about? And have you ever thought about, you know what, my gas is done, the tank is out? How do you actually overcome that too?

So I'll share one story from my childhood. So I grew up on a farm and the middle of nowhere, like literally closest neighbor is miles away. And my— I'm 7-ish years younger than my brother. So basically, I was an only child. You know, I was alone a lot. And my parents had this mentality of like, go play, we don't— like, go figure it out. And when you're hungry, you can come back to us.

The essentials.

You know, they didn't sit down on the floor and play with us. So I had a massive imagination. I played the most intricate games of setting up like a restaurant downstairs. I would play— I had a golf cart, so I would go run errands and then I'd have to go to work and I'd like drop my American Girls off at the daycare. And I was like constantly— Oh my God. Making up all of these games. So I do think that boredom as a child led to creativity as an adult and a muscle that I can, like, like I, I think we were chatting before we started recording the, like, it's scary what is happening up here at all. I'm constantly making jokes to myself, like puns. play on words. If I'm watching a commercial, I'm thinking of 5 different ways I would've done it differently. My brain is just constantly doing that. As an adult, I have to recognize that the thing that gave me that creativity was space.

Hmm.

And we wake up every day, we grab this, we start filling our brain before it has the ability to think. And so I'm very structured on how much I put into my brain at any given day to allow myself the space. I go on long walks without music so that my brain can just go and see where it goes. I go for runs and just realizing that if you want to think of something, you have to allow your brain to stop taking in so many inputs so it can do its own work.

It's funny that you mentioned about long walks. Yesterday I interviewed Matthew Koback. He literally said the same thing.

Oh, I love him.

He literally said the same thing. We were talking about like creativity for brands, and he's working at Slice, phenomenal company, trying like, you know, different things. He literally said the same thing. He said, no phone, long walks, preferably a run, get back, you're pumped with your— your gas is so full, it's actually overflowing. Now you just dump it. That's 2 people saying the same thing. That means it's a sign for me to like, you know, pick it up and for listeners, go for long walks. Couple of more questions and we can wrap it up. I want to talk about you, Amanda, as a mom, right? Which is, I think, very important. Out of all the things you talked about, I personally feel the founder life, the operator life, the creator life— nothing can beat the mother life, you know, the parent life. Mm-hmm. What kind of routine that you have with your kids that actually helps you fulfill The other 3 roles are— for now it's the creator role.

So if my kids were here, they'd probably— if you ask them like, what's mommy like? Like, I am the goofy one. Like, I love to make them laugh and to bring like fun into the house. So we are always blasting music, dancing, Like, home is a fun place. And I think that is my outlet for play because I talk a little— like, I was writing about this this morning for the book, but we have all of these roles that we play. Yeah. And we'd be lying to ourselves if we were, we were thinking that the same personality traits would lead in every role.

Mm-hmm.

So that's not to say that we don't have all of these personality traits. Like, you can be playful and goofy and funny, but you may choose not to lead with those personality traits in your work life because your work demands you to be assertive and aggressive, or, you know, in very in control and in command. And the thing that I love about all of these roles and how they're complementary and what, what me being a mom is, is it allows me to bring out those other parts of my personality with my children. And they see, like, they were home with me during COVID when I started House of Wise. So they see what it took and how stressful it was and how intense it was. We always, I talk about this a lot. This is a very well-known Amanda-ism, but I have this thing called the commute bath. And it's this joke where during— it started during COVID where my kids would see me being stressed and on all day, like packages need to go out, I need to do these calls, I need to figure out investor stuff. Like I was like very on it. And then I'd go take a bath and I'd— we called it like, I'm going to go take my mommy bath. And I would go turn into a mommy. Mm-hmm. Basically, that was my time where I could transition and soften and be playful. And so when I would come out, that was when I would be goofy and, you know, transition into that. But like, it was hard for me. And that, I think, acknowledging that we can have all these facets of our personality, and each role that we play demands different parts of it. And my kids are a great reminder of like the need to play and to be focused. And I think that that role complements— it allows me to then go into other things because as an adult, figuring out play is so hard. You know, we— it just feels serious all the time. Yeah. Bills to pay. I gotta change the car tag, like all the And so figuring out how to be so insanely present building a pillow fort is like a real skill set.

No, I think absolutely what you said is true. Adults, we live in, like you said, quote to you before, we live always in the place of fear. Always, you know, something we're catching up something or chasing something. Kids, they're blank white slates. they don't give a shit about your bills. They don't have bills. They only care about— they're a place where they completely come from play, like, you know, joy, that awe, that wonder. Like, everything is a surprise for them, right? That's what I learned from my 2-year-old. He teaches me how to be fascinated by, I don't know, like a regular Exactly. Like, go out. Dad, that's awesome. Like, he gives that expression where, like, that's, that's refreshing. That's— that itself is so refreshing. Uh, I think that

childlike wonder is like such— like, you just want to bottle it up and give it to everyone.

That's a product. That's a B2C product.

I would like wonder if there is a fly on the— let's all stop.

One more question. I think this is more asking for myself. You have 3 kids and I have one, and I sometimes get into this trap. I know it's a trap. I come out of it, but I get into it so deep that, am I being a good dad? Am I being like, am I doing the justice for this little guy that came from nowhere. I introduced him to this world. Have you ever thought about— you have 3, like, you know, what do they become in the future? How are you actually fulfilling the mom role with them? And you do a lot of shit. It's not like you're staying home. How do you overcome that?

So let me tell you this. The sheer act that you're asking That question puts you in the 1% of parents. You care. Like, that is the foundation for what is a good parent. You care that you're a good parent.

Mm-hmm.

And so, yes, like, you are an amazing dad because you're thinking about, am I doing this well? So many people go through life and they don't think about, like, Am I being a good partner? Like, things are just like a check-the-box activity for some people. Like, oh yeah, had kids, got a partner. And the fact that you're even asking that question means that you are. And then the thing that I remind myself is I'm the best parent I can be for them. Like, they were— they are my children. whatever happens in, in their life, like, I'm doing the best I can for them and I'm, I'm there, I'm showing up.

Mm-hmm.

We will all, like, we all end up needing therapy, whether your parents were overloving or underloving. I always joke that it all boils down to a one-sentence childhood. When you go to college and you meet somebody and they're like, what was your childhood like? Or if they say like, where are you from? Or whatever, what's your, what's your story? You say like a sentence. You say, you know, grew up in a small town.

Yep.

You know, it's kind of alone a lot, but I became really good at sports. And yeah, that was, that was, that's kind of it, right? My kids will probably say we moved around a lot because of COVID Parents got divorced really young. And, you know, I have 2 founders as parents, so they probably They're very, maybe they worked, but like at the end of the day, like it'll boil down to a few sentences. So I say that as like almost permission to like not obsess over it because like they're going to need, as long as you give them the tools and the toolkit to figure things out. Right.

And the resources.

They'll like, yeah, like that's it. And you're like, think about how much you're learning by doing this podcast. Yeah. That you're going to now You're learning, you're talking to all these different people. You're gonna be able to give them tools.

Absolutely.

Like, you're a curious person that enables you to like fill up your toolkit to pass to your kids. So many people are not doing that work and being curious about, hey, is there a way to say this to my kid that— and thankfully I have a therapist. So whenever I encounter something with my kids where I'm like, like I'm now entering into like preteen world. And it's psychological warfare. Like, it's so physical in the early days, and now it's psychological.

It's all mental.

Like, she's giving me something

good.

What do I do? But like, having your own tools and resources makes you a great parent. So I would just like, I just wanted to like give you that reassurance.

Yeah, I sometimes like, you know, go into this limbo. And of course, my wife is more like you. She's like, It is what it is, man. Like, you know, you can't really go in the future and change things. At the same time, you go back and like change your own childhood. Because so one of the fears I have is I'm an introvert, and my biggest fear is maybe my little kid is going to be like me. I should not— I would put him in a position where he is not like me. that has more friends, more charisma and all that. Again, that's like society talking right now. Yeah,

well, you're projecting what you want onto him, which that's basically dictating his wants and desires for him. And look, he may grow up and be loving being on his own and that could give him a superpower. So the crazy thing is you're an introvert, but you do a podcast, which I think is awesome because that shows me that you're pushing against that too.

COVID really, the last 4 years really pushed me. But I think, yeah, to your point, I think it is what it is. She reminds me, if he turns out to be you, she asked me, are you doing good? Are you Are you in a jail? You turned out good, right? So he'll figure it out. So I think that kind of reassurance, and thank you for that. I appreciate you saying that kind words. It kind of like you and the other Amanda Nutridat who said the same thing. Love her. She's like, hey, you are living in the future when you actually should be living and enjoying the present with your. you know, awe and wonder kid, right? So appreciate you guys for, uh, for reassuring, you know, we're on the right track.

I always joke whenever I hear like one of my friends like get really hard on themselves, I'll say, that's my friend you're talking about. And like, like your wife being like, you don't want him to turn out like you. Like, I love you. I fell in love with you. Like, what are you saying about me? And like, you know, so there you have to reframe it of like, Lots of people love you, and your your son turning out like you is a great thing because that's you know so I would just yeah that's distinct thought process. I my kids I have with three it's so fascinating to me how each one's personality is so drastically different, and they all were born within. 3 and a half years of each other. They're so different. So it's like, you can't control it. They're going to be how they're going to be. I have tried. My middle is so good. Like, she's so different and so complex. And like, figuring her out is like a jigsaw puzzle. And I'm so excited. And then she holds everything close to her chest, whereas my other 2 wear their hearts on their sleeves. And they tell you what they're feeling. And it's just so cool that each kid is different. So maybe this is freeing to you that you kind of can't control it. He's going to be whoever he's going to be.

Absolutely true. I think that can be a topic for your newsletter because a lot of parents like me, I express because that concerned me, but probably not many people need that, right? I think coming from you would be a perfect sense. But Amanda, thank you so much. I'm so grateful we had this conversation. So reassuring. I found my why again. I read your tweets, your newsletter, and day in, day out, week over week, you remind me of my why. This conversation actually reminded me of my why again. And I hope people get the same vibe from it, and I'm sure that they will. Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

No, this is wonderful. I appreciate you so much and so excited that you're doing this and giving people an opportunity to share what they're doing. So thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. That's it, folks. Like, you know, again, try. Don't try to win. Just try. Have a positive life. Have a present life. You know, I think that's the most important thing you can do. And do definitely subscribe to Amanda's newsletter, Life's a Game. We're going to put all the links In the show notes, stay tuned. We have more amazing guests like Amanda coming to the show, and appreciate you. Appreciate your action, Chin. For now, cheers.