The Power of Telling Your Story with Amy Nelson, Founder of The Riveter

Welcome to the Bold Moves. How did you know? Podcast A podcast for the naturally curious who wanted to find their own path. Here I'm sharing Bold Move stories that propelled my guests from curiosity to action. And in doing so, they've defined a path that is purposeful to them. Through these stories, I hope you'll be inspired to pursue your boldest dreams. It is really hard to sum up today's guest, Amy Nelson in a few sentences. She she is an award winning founder and co CEO of the Riveter, a private membership network built to advance and amplify working women. A lawyer, a podcast host, a writer, a speaker, a mom of four, she also formerly served on President Obama's national finance committee. So she's done a lot. And I learned a bit about Amy from prior Bold Moves guest Amy Schoenthal and quickly became intrigued with not just what Amy has accomplished, but also her strength, resilience, passion, and tenacity. She's built successful companies, raised millions of dollars to grow these companies, and she's also been through the fire showing us all that you can overcome anything. Here's a startling headline from Entrepreneur magazine. Founder Amy Nelson was madly pulling a pandemic pivot when the FBI showed up at her door with guns, seized her money, and told her husband he was the target of a criminal investigation. If that's not a cliffhanger, Amy, I don't know what is. I am so delighted to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me and sharing your stories. Let's get into what that headline was all about. It sounds like a plot of a movie, but that was your real life. So can you take us inside that moment? Why were the FBI agents at your door?

Yes. So it was April 2, 2020, and you know, we were kind of just two weeks into the pandemic, so it was already just a time of massive turmoil. We lived in Seattle and the Riveter in its original incarnation was a company built on co working. So our entire business model was how many people can you fit in a certain number of square feet? So our business model had just kind of blown up overnight from, you know, we were generating millions in revenue, had over 100 employees to just, it was, what do we do now? And then, and then all of our kids were out of they were in preschool and we lost our childcare. Four little kids, all under the age of five. And then the FBI showed up and it was a very confusing moment, a very confusing time. Over the past four years, we've learned why they were there. My Husband's former employer, Amazon, had accused him of a federal crime. It's a crime you've probably never heard of, called private sector honest services fraud, which is depriving your private sector employer of your honest services. And you know, they came and two FBI agents, it was 6:45 in the morning and they told him he was a target of a federal investigation. So they were accusing him of a crime. It wasn't a conversation. And they also told him that day that they intended to seize certain of his bank accounts. And six weeks later, they seized all of those accounts and every and every other business account and my bank accounts because my husband and I shared money. And it was, they seized the money my husband had paid his lawyers. So it, it's been a, it's been a wild ride over the past four years. My husband was ultimately never charged with a crime and the DOJ investigation just ended last month. So it was a four year saga. Yeah, like a lot of people don't talk about things when they go through things like this, but I was a public entrepreneur with the Riveter and I had an active social media presence. And I think a lot of times when you're accused of something, an accuser's goal is to make you small and to make you feel shame and to make you be silent. And I really just thought at a certain point with my family, like, we don't think my husband did anything wrong. We were on over here saying everyone knows what happened. We don't think my husband breached his employment contract with which a federal judge did say this year, whereas Amazon was saying it's a federal crime. And so what is the risk of speaking out? I think the risk is in not speaking out and in not telling our story.

And ultimately, how do you feel like speaking out garnered you either help in your situation or did it help in your situation to use your voice?

It helped me. Right. And so I think that is really important. It helped me deeply because I am a storyteller. And when I felt that I could not speak, it was painful to me. And I am also someone who believes deeply in fairness. I am a lawyer and have worked in politics my whole life. And I felt what was happening to our family was so unfair and I wanted to tell the story at least to, I mean, have a fighting chance. And then I think finally for me, telling the story was a way to create a record for my four daughters. You know, everyone always says it has to get better, it can't get worse, everything will work out. But you don't know that when you're going through it and it feels very frightening. But I did want my daughters when they grew up to know that we tried to fight every way we could. And that was important to me. And so that record is important to me.

What did you do to fight against these big corporate and government entities? I mean, Amy, that is scary. Amazon, the government. You know, you're living your life in Seattle as the two of you and your four children. How do you even think about fighting against these corporations and the government? Ultimately the highest level of the government.

I think at the beginning, I think we didn't understand what we were fighting. I think it's the easiest way to put it, because when you're, when you're just kind of like thrown into the federal criminal justice system, if you don't have experience with it, you are just like, what is happening? I had never heard of civil forfeiture. That's a privilege I had from being an upper middle class white woman. But I'd never heard of it. I didn't know it existed. I didn't know the government could take your money based on the suspicion of a crime without charging you or proving anything. And we also didn't know for actually two years that it was Amazon that was really lobbying the government to charge my husband with a crime, because this was all happening behind closed doors. I remember when it first started, I called a friend of mine for he'd been my friend for 20 years and he was a former federal prosecutor. And I told him what had happened and that Carl had gotten a target letter. And I said, what are the chances he isn't charged with a crime? And my friend said, 3%. And I was like, wow, okay. But I was like, well, that's a chance. The way I looked at it in my mind immediately, I was like, well, women only get 2% of venture capital dollars. And I did that, right. I made $30 million for the river. So, like, it doesn't mean there's not a chance. There's a chance. So you have to try to dig into that chance as much as you can. Ultimately, we hired Alex as my husband's lawyer. This was my friend that I called. But I think, you know, we spent a lot of money, I think you have to say, at the base of that, like, we, the government had seized our bank accounts. So my husband and I were both high earners. And until it became very public, my husband was able to continue working. He's a brilliant real estate developer. And so he was able to continue to make money. I was making money. And then we sold everything. We were just like, we're doing this right? So we sold our home, we sold our car, we liquidated retirement, we borrowed money, we raised money. I mean, we just committed to doing it. One of the main things that has changed me in this experience is that I no longer think in long term time horizons because to get through the past four years, I had to only think as far ahead as I could. And for a long time, a long time, that was thinking, like, when I woke up, I can get to lunch. And I just could not think past that because it was too scary and too big and too unpredictable. And it's only recently that I started to be able to think and dream beyond short time horizons again. So, yeah, we got minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day for four years.

Which must have seemed in retrospect now, like a lot longer than four years. I mean, that is a long time on its own. But when you're going through it on a day by day basis, I mean, it just must feel like the biggest nightmare. Nightmare you could ever be a part of.

Yeah.

Before this happened and I. It's really honestly an encroachment on your personal liberty. You had big dreams and, And. Right. And you had so much in motion. You had been doing so much. As I read in the intro. Right. So what were you setting out to do before this event? I don't even know what we call it. Right. Like the situation, you know, I, I would assume had some sort of pivotal, like a pivotal moment in how it would change what you were doing or how you were thinking about doing it.

A lot of times before all this happened, I. I looked at my life in chapters and probably still do and hope that this is a chapter of the book, but. And when I. I'd been a lawyer for 10 years and a political fundraiser on a volunteer capacity because I was deeply enamored with our democracy and. But when I became a mother, I had, I had my first two daughters. I was a litigator and it's client services. Yeah, you're highly paid, but it's client services. The hours are completely unpredictable. It's very high intensity and I loved it. But my husband was doing real estate development with Amazon. Constantly traveling, we lived thousands of miles from family. And I was like, how do I do this? And so I sought to speak to women who were partners at my law firm. And I realized, wait, there like, actually aren't any working mother litigation partners at my law firm, which says a lot and so I thought I would go out on my own and kind of create more of my own flexible path to be a lawyer. And so I started taking classes on like, how to write a business plan and all those things, because I was like, well, I don't have an mba. I have a jd. I don't know what I'm doing. I soon realized nobody actually knows what they're doing ever. But I was going to these classes and they were at co working spaces, and it was all men. And I was like, where are women who are starting businesses? And just as an. As a newer mother, I really wanted to connect with people that I saw myself in and I wanted to have that shared experience because I found new motherhood to be somewhat isolating. It's scary. Like, one day you're not a mom, and then one day you are for the rest of your life and you're like, what is this? It's like, here's a child. Good luck, best of luck. And so then I thought, well, maybe instead of building my own law firm, I can create a space. It's like a co working space where women who are building businesses or pivoting or freelancing can come together and share resources and connect. And so that was what I set out to do with the Riveter. Originally, I meant to build like one clubhouse in Seattle, which is not what I did because I had, you know, part of it too, was intending to have a more flexible schedule and work less, but I didn't do that. Like, really from the beginning of when it was an idea, I decided that I could build these across the country and I started raising money. I was good at raising money. I think probably because I'd raised a lot of money for politics, was used to hearing no, it didn't scare me. And when I started my legal career, I worked on Wall street and I work with a lot of guys making deals. And so I just kind of was like, well, I've seen that. I know how they do that. It's all bravado and, you know, and like, I had a great business plan, but I knew how to put myself in that room and stand up and make the pitch. And so, you know, the Riveter. We opened the doors to the first Riveter in May of 2017. And within two and a half years, we had 10 spaces in six states. I had over 100 employees, generating millions in revenue. I had two more babies during that time. I mean, it was a wild ride. And, you know, at the time, I like, I would Say at the time, the riveter was my number one priority, above, above my kids, above time wise, above my kids, above my marriage. And it's interesting because I think what happened with Amazon, well, there's one path. Like, I have no idea what would have happened if the pandemic hadn't happened and Amazon had happened. Like, that world. I always wonder what would have happened, right? Like, how could I have kept running a company of 120 people when at the very beginning of this, I couldn't function?

Two major, very significant a world event, the pandemic and this life event collided literally within a month of each other. And your business was built on physical

spaces and density, like packing people in and density.

So of course, you know, the first month we're like, okay, what's going to happen with this? Maybe it's going to just dissipate, right? Maybe this is going to be.

Be over.

So we're holding out hope, but then it becomes clear that, nope, this is going to be a while. And so now you've got these two colliding events happening at the same time, and having to deal with one thing is, on its own, really intense and not for the faint of heart. But these two things at. At one time, I can't even imagine was a lot.

I mean, it was really a lot. And I will say, you know, I get a lot because I'm so vocal about it. Everyone's like, you're so strong. But for the first six months, I was not strong. I was falling apart. I had a hard time getting out of bed. I didn't want to get out of bed. I was physically shaking. It felt very scary. I don't remember much of, like, what happened with the Riveter when we were shutting down the physical business, which I feel like I never went back into a riveter space. And that's such a loss that I've never even processed. We built this big business, and the riveter still exists, but just in a very different incarnation. But I think really, my mom one day facetimed me from Ohio and she's like, you've gotta get up. Like, you just. You've gotta get up. And, like, you just have to tackle the day, like, this is an ending. So basically your choices are to, like, lay down and die or stand up. And it sounds very dramatic, but if you're not participating in your own life, you know, it's still. It's still a life. When I had my I Heart podcast, what's her story? We interviewed Amanda Knox and It was so profound. And one of the things she said is that, you know, when she's in prison in Italy, thinking she would be there for decades, and she realized like, this isn't the life I wanted, but it's my life. And so how do I build community? How do I find a way to do something here, right? And I think at a certain point with, with what was happening to my husband, it's like this is our life. Our children are, are breathing human beings. They're little girls. They need love, they need to adventure, they need to do things. I need to give them that. I don't get to opt out of that. And I just have to do the best I can. And you just start doing it.

I read in the Entrepreneur article, I was like, I mean, speaking of the riveter, this was riveting to me. This article I was just reading, I could not get enough. It just pulled me right into your story. But it said something really profound. I thought so I would. I took a snapshot of it. I'm going to read it real quick. It said trauma is sapping her of the very ability she's needed to save her company. Ingenuity and drive, deep creativity, risk taking, the capacity to dream. As someone who's always overachieved. She is lost, grasping to find her potential again. She does the one thing she can do. Ask for help. So why do you think that asking for help was ultimately that hand out this deep depression, despair to getting to a place in your mind where you just said, I only have one life, right? I need to change the way I'm thinking about this to be able to live till noon or, you know, I'm sure as the days went on it was like, okay, I can get through today. Why was help the big thing that could change everything?

Because none of us can do it alone. None of us can do anything alone. We aren't built to do things alone. We, we are built to be part of community. We built to be part of a village. And every other time in my life when I'd had success, I had leaned into that concept deeply. Right? And so with something like what happened to my husband, your immediate immediate. Just like I hoped the pandemic would be short lived and the riveters physical spaces would come back. At the beginning, I hoped this DOJ investigation would be short lived. They would understand my husband did nothing wrong and we could move on and maybe it wouldn't be public. But when I realized that wasn't happening, it's like, well, if the world's going to know about it. I'm going to ask for help to get through it. And it might be uncomfortable to some people, but this is what I have to do. I asked for help in running the riveter and figuring out what to do because I could not access that part of my brain at all. I just. It was just gone for a long time. And I felt that I needed to devote my time to my kids and then to helping my husband legally, which I did. And when I couldn't access the creative part of my brain, I could access the lawyer part of my brain, because that I know how to do. And I know how to do endless hours of research and all these things and things that we couldn't necessarily pay lawyers to do because we didn't have endless amounts of money. And I think one of the things I learned in scaling the riveter very quickly and coming from a background as a lawyer where I hadn't been on teams and I hadn't managed people, is that your best use is the one you're best at and you should ask for help and all the things you're not best at to give you the time to do the things you're best at or where you're most needed. And at that moment in time, like the riveter, we had newsletter, we were doing digital events. It could somewhat be on. Like, it didn't. I wasn't going to be able to come up with a new invention of the riveter at that period in time, but I could have helped me manage what it was during the period of time, keep it alive, because I didn't want it to go away. And so I just did that.

I think I read in that article that you use that lawyer side of your brain to get yourself out of a few of your leases across the country.

I did get to do that, yes.

Yeah.

So we had, you know, we actually exited all 10 of our leases. And, you know, there was a question at the beginning, like, can we get out of our leases? Because our landlords were still charging us for rent because it's their property, but we couldn't operate our business model. And so we negotiated out of our leases. And that was a long and arduous process. One of the reasons, when I ultimately left lawyering, like, I did not love being a lawyer. So this is all like. I'm like, why is the universe doing this? There's this movie quote, some movie I forget, like, you may be done with this, but it's not done with you.

I Want to get into where the Riveter is now. But before we leave, what's happened and isn't it true, Amy, that this chapter is just now closing?

Yeah, the DOJ investigation is over. The civil forfeiture. When they seized our money, that money was returned. Amazon sued my husband, and the judge in the civil case threw out six of the seven claims against my husband before trial because Amazon had no evidence last April. But Amazon is appealing that now. So we're still dealing with this civil case, and then my husband has sued Amazon, so that will play out as well. The DOJ investigation being over is. That's life changing for me. Certainly, I can't even imagine how my husband feels. But, yeah, that. That feels like a big chapter to be closed. Because, you know, you're 3%, right? We made it. So long time.

Yeah. Wow. Amazing. What do you think that you. This event, this situation ignited your resolve? How did it change what you set out to do?

It really changes everything forever. Because life is a very. Everything has just a completely different perspective. It's going to sound flippant when I say this, but I'm like, well, my husband's not going to federal prisons. There's not a lot that can kind of trip you up anymore. I also realized very much from this that people with a lot of power, companies with a lot of power can be very terrifying, but they don't control everything. There's. I often go to quotes because I had to use quotes to get me through this. I'm a reader. There's a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus Finch says, you know, courage isn't a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you even begin, but you try to see it through anyway. Right? And that gives me so much resolve for the rest of my life. You might as well try something. You might as well. The worst that can happen is you fail. Start another business, it might fail. Start the riveter school, it might fail. But you'll get back up. You know, you'll get back up, like, as long as your family's together and you're doing the best you can. That's enough.

I'm getting pings about this concept of being silenced. And I think that your story definitely shines a light on how people can easily get silenced, you know, in a lot of different situations, right? From fighting powerful entities, whether it be an entity like a corporation or person, people can feel silenced. And it's really inspirational to speak with you and Empowering to hear your story and know that even when you feel silence, you still can overcome that and use your voice to tell your story and ultimately get the help to get out of the situation or find the resources to support you going through the situation. It, it can, though, feel very intimidating. But I think what you're saying, Amy, is you just like, dug down so deep inside to be. To find that power that there was in there and use your voice to make progress.

Well, I think one thing too is that when I start. So I, I had previously had a social media presence on Instagram because of the Riveter, but I didn't have any presence on TikTok. And I started making videos on TikTok about, just about Amazon in December of 2022. And I didn't know if anybody would watch them. But Now I have 190,000 followers just talking about Amazon. When I started speaking out, I didn't expect anyone to listen or really believe me. But one thing that came of this that I think is really important and I would love to share this with anybody who's wondering how to tell a story or thinking about telling their story, is that in just going out and saying, I'm just going to start doing this, I don't really have a plan, I'm just going to start speaking and sharing these videos is that I learned what messages resonated with people. I learned what stories got through, I learned what questions people had. And that is a skill that I can now take and translate into any business, into any story I ever want to tell. Oh, you are allowed to actually experiment in public with your storytelling. You're telling a true story. But some things that I think are super important and will grab people, they're like, I don't care. But other things they totally grab onto. And I think that's really interesting because I think many of us believe we have to have our message perfectly honed before we put it into the world, and you just don't. I think particularly in this world, people just want authenticity and connection and to hear the real you. And I think that's really important.

Great segue into the Riveter school. So can you tell us more about the Riveter school and how you got to this idea and what it's all about?

Yeah, so when the Riveter built co working spaces, our focus was on women. So we were built by women for everyone. So we weren't women only. But the Riveter is named after Rosie. The Riveter is the iconic image from World War II, when women had to go to work to save the American economy while men were fighting abroad. And I loved that because it was really the first time women defined the workforce in America. And we still do. But when the Riveter was building the co working spaces, we focused on women and we did a lot of programming in our spaces. Anything from like how to negotiate a raise to how to pivot to freelancing and so on. And during the pandemic when I was really mired in the Amazon world, the Riveters business model is we have a newsletter that goes out to tens of thousands of people and we would put on like digital events or in real life events once those started coming back to life. And those are great. And our revenue was partnerships and advertising dollars. And I never set out to build a media company. It wasn't my passion in life and, and I think for some people it is. And that's amazing. And I do think it's really important to have a platform that speaks to working women because we're a lot of times where it's not taken so seriously. Like people think we don't want to talk about our work or not to mention we also control all the purse strings in American homes and so brands should want to talk to us. But I thought, but so we were doing that and I'm like, this is great, but what else can we do? What are we, what will this company be? I knew we wouldn't rebuild the coworking spaces because I couldn't go out and raise $30 million more dollars and begin again. And, and honestly, nor did I want to talk about changing perspectives. And a big shift for me is that I now spend a lot more time with my children. And I love that. And it's very important to me and my husband. I spent a lot of time with my husband and it's very important to me that I can do that. And so I, over the past year and a half have been really thinking, what's my zone of genius? Why do people come to the Riveter? Why do people connect with me? Because, you know, my social media following is half a million people. Why are they listening to me? What is it that draws people in? What is it that people are interested in or they think I'm good at? And what can I offer? And I realized the through line of my career, whether it be lawyering, political fundraising, fighting, Amazon, starting the Riveter was all this idea that I believe deeply in the power of a story. I believe in the power of story to establish an expert platform to be a thought leader, to use that to either grow within your industry or start your own business or launch a product to build and connect with an audience. And I realized I've done this over and over again. I know how to do this and in a very authentic way, which is, I think one of the reasons I have had a lot of success is I'm really authentic. I just lay it out. I'm not capable of being any other way. That is a skill that comes naturally to me, that I've honed through my work. I know so many brilliant business women who don't have that particular skill. They're like operations mavens. I can't operate anything to save my life. Literally I can't. But like, and I don't, I can't do finance. Like I have to have all sorts of help on those sides. But you know, storytelling is something you can teach to people. You don't have to go to Harvard to get a degree in it, but it's something you can teach to people. And I care about it and I love it and I'm really passionate about it. And so I thought this is what I want to do. Like, this is what I want to use this platform to do. And so I came up with the idea for the Riveter school and I made a couple of concrete decisions. Both could jump into the Riveter school and one off opportunities, but that I wanted to create a year long platform because I think there's a lot to creating groups of women that you get to be with for a year so that you build even within your own village, in your own community, you build trust, you're sharing stories, it's important and you can learn so much from each other. And so I just went for it. I spent a lot of time thinking what do I think are the different areas of expertise? And then the really exciting thing beyond teaching storytelling and it's everything from identifying what your thought leadership platform could be. Everybody's an expert in something. From your lived experience, from what you know, like we are so like identifying that, building a platform around it, sharing that on written social media, sharing it on visual social media. So like beyond these subject matters, one of the things I was most excited about was the fact that I could also leverage this amazing community of women I've met over the years who are themselves experts in all of these different disciplines and say, hey, can you help me? Can you pop in and work with Riveter school students? And I have just been amazed, like every single person I've asked has said yes. And it's just amazing women. So when you talk about, we're going to talk about writing columns and op eds and with op eds we have Diane Harris, who was the op ed editor for Newsweek. Right. Like, what better person to tell you, like, what you need for an op ed or for visual social media? My friend Tori Dunlap, who has, you know, she was an early riveter member when we had physical spaces in Seattle. And she is a sensation, has the number one finance podcast in America ahead of Dave Ramsey. And she built on TikTok, started making viral TikTok videos about personal finance. And she's amazing. And her, her podcast is called Financial Feminist, which is amazing. She's great, you know, and she's very controversial views. It's great. But I, and she, I'm sure she charges like 25, $50,000 to speak. And I was like, can you just do this? And she's like, yes. Because I think there's this sense that women really want to help other women open the doors. Right. There's no sense in gatekeeping any of this.

Right.

Like, the point is, like, everybody should, should know it.

Yeah. All ships rise together. Right. Or all tides rise together. Yeah. No, that mentality is the mentality that's going to help us all be successful. Those people who think it's competition, it's not that. Right. I think competition in the corporate world was the name of the game for so long. It's like I have to beat out the guy next to me in order to get ahead. And I, I think the conversation around community is becoming more front and center, thankfully. But it is accessing the who's. Who can you ask for help? Who can you collaborate with? Who can you brainstorm with? How can you. How can you do what's in your zone of genius, as you said, and then tap other people on the shoulder to help you with their zone of genius? I have been interviewing so many different people now. The podcast is about to hit a year in March. Exciting.

That's a big deal.

I publish every other week. And so I think I've spoken to about 25 different bold movers and shakers, let's say. And I put together this bold moves recipe after identifying, like, different patterns that these people do in order to take the steps forward to get to their dreams and accomplish their goals. I think I was telling you this before we hit record, but I didn't find many resources to actually break down the how part of it. I think I would listen to different podcasts or, you know, read different articles or whatever. And it would all just say what people were doing and why they were doing it. But I didn't ever understand the steps to get there. But this is a long winded way to say that, that the middle part of this recipe, it's three parts, is about who, and it is that concept of asking for help. Because I think that's what opens up your eyes and raises kind of your lid on the possibilities of where to go and how to get there. And that to me, even, I guess it can come in parallel, but it is about. That is an action item, right, for everybody to get to their dreams. You have to access other people to help support you. And it sounds like that's been prevalent in your life as well.

It really has. And I want to tell a story that I don't think I've ever told, but that ties all of this together for me, everything you're saying. Because it also can't just be transactional, right, to be able to be in a place to ask for help. You have to build relationships that matter. And when we go back to talking about competition, when the riveter was growing, there was a space that was women focused out of New York called the Wing. And it was very, very popular. Way bigger than the riveter. It was way bigger than the riveter. They were in New York and San Francisco and all the fancy places. It was started by a woman named Audrey Gelman, who is a sensation. She had a background in pr, she'd been in Vogue. She's very brilliant brand, like just a genius. And she was younger than me, and I saw her as my arch enemy. I think in my mind, she probably had no idea who I was. But I'm like, she's definitely my enemy. She's got this bigger company. She's my competition. And then in the summer of 2020, when many businesses are going through turmoil, she exited her business. And I reached out to her and I said, you know, I don't really know what happened, but it's got to have been really hard to lose or walk away from what you built. And I really feel for you and, like, I'd love to, you know, connect. And we connected and we talked and we became friends. And I wish I had reached out to her years prior. We'd been building alongside one another because she wasn't coming to Seattle, I wasn't going. You know, it's like. And also, if they had whatever, there's millions of people, it would have Been absolutely fine. We were building different things. And then ultimately I bring it up because in the spirit of asking for help. Audrey knew during the pandemic that I needed to make more money because the Riveter was kind of just plateauing and I needed to make money to pay lawyers for my family. And she reached out to me and she said, this company, Hudson's Bay Company, is, is turning some former retail real estate space into co working and they need a CEO. And like, I want to recommend you and saved my life.

Wow.

Right. And so you think, like, if I had kept in my mind that she was the competition, if I hadn't reached out, if I hadn't. And that is another thing I would say that I have learned through my own experience is if you see someone struggling, just send a text or a message. I mean, it's so easy, it takes so little, and you can just make them feel so much less alone with the smallest thing and build relationships that last a lifetime.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. It signifies to me too that you, when you put yourself out there, so there's a little bit of an essence of vulnerability also that you convey once you are able to break down the barriers with people and have conversations that, like you said, go beyond the transaction of I need something to actually thinking about it from. I'm just trying to find a new friend or I would treat this conversation like I would have with a friend. It does. The authenticity in that and the vulnerability in that creates a stronger connection. And then they're going to think of you down the road with when an opportunity comes up. It might not happen, you know, in the moment that you connect with them, but it could happen a month later, a year later. You don't really even know. But that's the value of these connections that you're creating through relationship building.

So thanks for sharing your story.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Gosh, you know, there's so many things and nuggets in your story that I've learned from and. And I'm just like, so inspired by you, Amy. So in transparency to everybody listening, I joined the Riveter school and I cannot wait to go on this journey over the next year. As I've been saying, I believe in the value of asking for help and connecting with other people who have done these things ahead of me so that I can learn from them and get even better on my journey. So ultimately, that's the reason why I am going to be working with Amy over the next year. And I cannot wait. We kick off tomorrow. Isn't that right? I think it's tomorrow.

Exciting. Yes, it is. Yeah.

So I will keep you all posted. I know. As I always do on my own Bold Moves journey in the podcast club. So if you haven't signed up for the podcast club yet, I'm linking it in this episode. So make sure you open the show notes and go ahead and join. But Amy, I have one final question that I ask all of my guests, and that is, what do you know about being bold today? You wish you would have known earlier on.

I wish I would have known that it's absolutely okay to begin when you have no idea how it's going to end. Because if you don't begin, you don't even know you don't like the book doesn't start. You have to write the first page, the first chapter to get anywhere. And just go for it. You don't need to be fully baked. Just go for it.

Yes. If people want to learn more about you, the Riveter School, where can they find you?

The Riveter online is at theriviter Co, and all of our social handles for the Riveter are at thereiveterco. And then I am everywhere at amyknelson.

Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me, Amy. It's been truly a pleasure to have you here. I'm so intrigued by your story and just to hear it from you has been extra special. So thanks again for being on my podcast today.

Thank you so much for having me. I loved it. It was really fun.

For everybody else, make sure that you subscribe to this podcast so you never miss another one, and we'll see you in the next one. Bye for now.