Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
Speaker 2: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 2: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 2: advice they might have for the rest of us. So
Speaker 2: today I am delighted to welcome Amy Wilson to the show.
Speaker 2: Amy is the co host of the excellent podcast What
Speaker 2: Fresh Hell. She is also an actor who's been on
Speaker 2: many shows, including the TV show Norms. She's appeared on Broadway.
Speaker 2: She is also the author of a brand new book
Speaker 2: of essays called Happy to Help Adventures of a People Pleaser. Amy,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Laura, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on this.
Speaker 2: So maybe you could introduce yourself to our listeners. Just
Speaker 2: a little bit about your life, your work.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, I shouted out as a performer and
Speaker 3: a sketch comedian. As you said, always wrote my own
Speaker 3: things to perform. Always found that I got farther writing
Speaker 3: my own material in terms of playing the roles I
Speaker 3: wanted to play, and once I became a parent, moved
Speaker 3: into creating content for parenting, did a show called mother
Speaker 3: Love that toured around the country for a while. Out
Speaker 3: of that, got my book deal for a book called
Speaker 3: When Did I Get Like This? That came out in
Speaker 3: twenty ten, around the same time as your first book.
Speaker 3: I believe because that's how we first met.
Speaker 1: I've been in this business for a very long That's.
Speaker 3: Right, we've met. I've been on the road for book promotion,
Speaker 3: and since then my life took many personal turns that
Speaker 3: are certainly laid out in the book and started What
Speaker 3: Fresh Hell in twenty sixteen and found my way back
Speaker 3: to writing this second book after writing a novel that
Speaker 3: didn't work. A few different things that are all part
Speaker 3: of the journey. This book is finally coming out. I'm
Speaker 3: so excited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and What Fresh Hell? I mean launching in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: that was pretty early in the podcast day, correct it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Margaret Abeles, my co host, was somebody that I
Speaker 3: was acquainted with. But really that was it again, like
Speaker 3: knew each other from the space and she said she
Speaker 3: took me out to lunch and said, so, I have
Speaker 3: an idea, what if we did a podcast together? At
Speaker 3: the time I mean I knew her, I didn't know
Speaker 3: how many.
Speaker 4: Kids she had, how old they were.
Speaker 3: People assumed that we were always best friends, and we
Speaker 3: have certainly become very close friends and work wives. But
Speaker 3: at the time we didn't know each other that well
Speaker 3: at all. We just kind of thought the other person
Speaker 3: was funny and started the podcast on a whim. Let's
Speaker 3: try this, let's do something fun together. I don't think
Speaker 3: we could ever have predicted we'd be doing it all
Speaker 3: these years later. But it's still fun, so we're still doing.
Speaker 1: It, still doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what people who If you haven't listened to What
Speaker 2: Fresh Hell, you should everyone who's listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that makes it so interesting
Speaker 2: is Amy and Margaret have slightly different personnel, lightly slightly.
Speaker 2: Margaret's a bit more of a free form sort of person.
Speaker 2: I think Amy, you have described yourself as very things,
Speaker 2: as a type a kind of person as you've used
Speaker 2: words such as recovering perfectionist. Maybe you can talk about
Speaker 2: how you came to write this book, Happy to Help
Speaker 2: Adventures of a People Pleaser, I mean, what it means
Speaker 2: to discover that one is a people pleaser in life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with me, I mean, I think I am and
Speaker 3: am not a people pleaser as I've looked into this more,
Speaker 3: but what I definitely am is an over deliverer. I've
Speaker 3: actually found a very old episode of the podcast where
Speaker 3: I said I was a sticker outer, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 4: I wish I thought of that for the cover a
Speaker 4: sticker outer.
Speaker 3: I stick with things. I see things through to a
Speaker 3: complete fault, and sometimes that is the right thing to do.
Speaker 3: It's certainly a good trait to have sometimes. But I
Speaker 3: have definitely stuck with relationships, jobs, you know, ideas that
Speaker 3: kept me stuck that I just thought, well, it was
Speaker 3: me and I just have to work harder, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to make this unfixable situation fixed. And I think
Speaker 3: that's where I got stuck. And I came up with
Speaker 3: the idea because I was actually talking to Ziby Owens
Speaker 3: about writing a book for Ziby Books, who was publishing
Speaker 3: this book, and she suggested that I sort of engage
Speaker 3: with the idea of slack in our lives and when
Speaker 3: we have to pick up the slack, when we have
Speaker 3: to give ourselves slack, other people slack. So I was
Speaker 3: sort of whiteboarding that out and the column that had
Speaker 3: nothing in it was times that I had to pick
Speaker 3: up the slack that I hadn't worked hard enough. And
Speaker 3: the longer that column stayed empty, the more I realized, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's what's the book is about that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to not give it my all,
Speaker 3: even when it was a terrible idea to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I know a lot of us are
Speaker 2: juggling many things in life as you are, you know, work, family, home, etc.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things you've written about is
Speaker 2: that a lot of the sort of traditional productivity advice
Speaker 2: like say no right, just say no more often isn't
Speaker 2: particularly helpful maybe for people who are.
Speaker 1: Committed to seeing things through and all that.
Speaker 2: Maybe you could talk a little bit about why is
Speaker 2: this productivity advice unhelpful?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's from the point of view of
Speaker 3: people who aren't the people ask in the first place.
Speaker 3: You know, Like people were like, just say no, there's
Speaker 3: a complete sentence, and like nobody ever asked me to
Speaker 3: do stuff. Well, right, they don't, but they ask me
Speaker 3: to do stuff because I'm the person who over delivers
Speaker 3: and who doesn't say no, and who shows up every time,
Speaker 3: and so for people like me to rewrite the narrative.
Speaker 3: You know, I've had success over the last couple of
Speaker 3: years while I was writing this book living this out
Speaker 3: in my life. Why do I always say yes, are
Speaker 3: there places where I can hand things over? And then
Speaker 3: I'd try to and that wouldn't work either, and saying
Speaker 3: no didn't work either. Or I'd say no and nobody
Speaker 3: would say, oh, okay. In that case, I'll start doing
Speaker 3: it all, you know, I'll host Thanksgiving or something like that.
Speaker 3: Doesn't always happen. It's not as simple as you stop
Speaker 3: worrying about things and they magically resolve. You stop doing things,
Speaker 3: and somebody else picks up the slack. That doesn't happen often.
Speaker 3: And so what you really have to get comfortable with
Speaker 3: is the thing not happening at all, or people being
Speaker 3: disappointed in you, or things remaining uncertain, which I think
Speaker 3: getting comfortable with uncertainty is probably the key to everything.
Speaker 3: But I had to learn how to do that in
Speaker 3: order to be okay with stopping sooner.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that Thanksgiving one, because that strikes
Speaker 2: me as one that yes, the result is that you
Speaker 2: just don't have a big group Thanksgiving. But maybe that
Speaker 2: isn't the end of the world.
Speaker 3: Right, Maybe that isn't the end of the world. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's some things that you really can't say no to.
Speaker 3: Right If your aunt breaks your hip and you're the
Speaker 3: only one who lives in the same town, you're probably
Speaker 3: going to be taking her to a few doctor's appointments,
Speaker 3: and you can say no and put yourself first and
Speaker 3: hold a boundary. But then you're kind of a jerk, right,
Speaker 3: And so then what are the other things that you
Speaker 3: can put down? Because that kind of feels like nothing.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're hosting Thanksgiving is something you can put down.
Speaker 3: But when I think you're somebody who's traditionally taken on
Speaker 3: a lot, been the capable one that people can count on,
Speaker 3: you look around at your too long list which of
Speaker 3: these things? I can you think? Which of these things
Speaker 3: am I going to put down? And the answer feels
Speaker 3: like nothing?
Speaker 2: Well, it's part of that then that other people sort
Speaker 2: of feed into this relationship. Like if you have a
Speaker 2: relationship with a capable one and your family you or
Speaker 2: your spouse or your best friend or whatever it happens
Speaker 2: to be, does that tend to create some sort of
Speaker 2: less capability on the part of the other people.
Speaker 1: Is that how that work?
Speaker 3: I think so, And I don't think it's intentional, and
Speaker 3: I don't think it's malicious. It's just everybody around you
Speaker 3: is pretty disincentivized to do it. You've always done it before,
Speaker 3: and sometimes you've probably said you're not going to do
Speaker 3: it this year, and then you did it anyway, and
Speaker 3: so why wouldn't they keep going the way things were?
Speaker 3: It works pretty well for everybody else. So this redistributions.
Speaker 3: It's hard work and it can happen, but you have
Speaker 3: to ask and then ask again, and then say and
Speaker 3: then say again, and that the redistribution is a lot
Speaker 3: of work too, which is worth it. But I just
Speaker 3: think to the overwhelmed woman in particular, the world often
Speaker 3: says that it's your mindset. You know, you just need
Speaker 3: to relax. Things will get done, says the person who
Speaker 3: knows that you will do the things right. So it's
Speaker 3: just get a sense of humor about it. Stop liking
Speaker 3: to make things harder than they need to be. Are
Speaker 3: you doing that sometimes?
Speaker 4: Probably?
Speaker 3: Are you doing that all the time? No? But I
Speaker 3: feel like that's too often the only advice you get instead.
Speaker 2: Of help yeah, absolutely, But we're going to take a
Speaker 2: quick ad break and then I will be back with
Speaker 2: more from Amy Wilson.
Speaker 1: Well, I am back.
Speaker 2: This is one of the longer episodes of Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: I am interviewing Amy Wilson, who is the author of
Speaker 2: the brand new book of essays, Happy to Help Adventures
Speaker 2: of a People Pleaser. So, Amy, I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of different short essays in this book, I mean
Speaker 2: kind of quick read for people. What would you say
Speaker 2: was your favorite one of this to write?
Speaker 3: My favorite one was My eighth grade Diary, an exploration
Speaker 3: of my eighth grade diary, which is the only year
Speaker 3: I kept a diary in my whole life. And my
Speaker 3: friend Julie recently said that the eighth grade you is
Speaker 3: the most technicolor version of you of anyone. That it
Speaker 3: is you, right, and when you look back, why it's
Speaker 3: so cringey is because like there you were in highly
Speaker 3: you know, crystallized form, waiting to burst forth. And that
Speaker 3: was certainly true for me. And when I went back
Speaker 3: and looked at my eighth grade diary, I was constantly
Speaker 3: giving myself assignments. And the last thing I wrote in
Speaker 3: my eighth grade diary was that I had to do
Speaker 3: everything I could to make the people I really love happy.
Speaker 3: And I found that after I started writing this book,
Speaker 3: and then I went back and found that diary. I'm like,
Speaker 3: holy cow, I was telling myself that when I was
Speaker 3: thirteen that I had to do everything I could. And
Speaker 3: I think that that's that sort of hallmark sentiment is
Speaker 3: something a lot of us. I think it's kind of
Speaker 3: drilled into all young women. But for some reason I
Speaker 3: ran with it. For some reason, I was like, that's right,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna do it too.
Speaker 2: And You've talked a little bit about this maybe eldest daughter,
Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, right, what is that?
Speaker 3: So I am everybody knows about this eldest daughter syndrome.
Speaker 3: Everybody's talking about that. You're sort of a type a personality,
Speaker 3: but it's visited upon you by your circumstances, which I
Speaker 3: firmly agree with. In my case, I'm the oldest of
Speaker 3: six kids, my mother was the oldest of eight kids.
Speaker 3: I'm the oldest of twenty five first cousins, and so
Speaker 3: I think that, yeah, I'm sort of like a.
Speaker 4: Super double triple eldest sister.
Speaker 3: I mean, I really, I was really soaking in it
Speaker 3: during my formative years. And see, I grew up since
Speaker 3: I was in second grade. I was babysitting for free
Speaker 3: and changing diapers, and I liked it, and I was
Speaker 3: good at it. I wasn't a grade schooler who was
Speaker 3: seething with resentment. I got a lot of identity from it,
Speaker 3: from being a happy helper, And I think that couldn't
Speaker 3: help but shape me, not even necessarily for the worst,
Speaker 3: but it did shape me that I love to help
Speaker 3: other people and that's what I'm good at, and that's
Speaker 3: where I draw my self esteem.
Speaker 2: So one of the things we like to do on
Speaker 2: this show is share practical tips, right, and so obviously
Speaker 2: there's many psychological things to unpack with what makes someone
Speaker 2: a people pleaser or maybe has difficulties broadly with setting boundaries.
Speaker 2: But let's say someone is, you know, resolving in the
Speaker 2: new year to set better boundaries. Are there some practical
Speaker 2: small things that you would suggest people start doing.
Speaker 3: I think that for me, I had to learn that
Speaker 3: saying no was the first step the whole Like saying
Speaker 3: no is a complete sentence thing. Never I just sort
Speaker 3: of thought, like I know that, but when I say no,
Speaker 3: then nothing changes that Saying no What you really have
Speaker 3: to prepare yourself for is the silence that will follow,
Speaker 3: usually uncomfortable silence. Again not malicious, but when you say
Speaker 3: I'm going to need to step down from this committee.
Speaker 3: Some things have come up and I'm going to need
Speaker 3: to step down that there's this you know, there'll be
Speaker 3: a long, confused silence that will follow. And that's where
Speaker 3: I had to really learn to not say, I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess I could stick around till we find somebody else,
Speaker 3: or I mean I guess I could be the vice
Speaker 3: person on the committee.
Speaker 1: Like that, you you are.
Speaker 4: Everybody's a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Everybody else is like, wait, what, she's not going to
Speaker 3: do the committee. I don't want to do the committee either.
Speaker 3: Who's going to do the committee? While everybody's sort of
Speaker 3: cogitating on that, I think I would take it all back,
Speaker 3: or take some of it back, rush to fill the silence,
Speaker 3: and to me, like no is the easy part. The
Speaker 3: silence and sitting on my hands while nothing happens at first,
Speaker 3: that's the hard part. But if you can sit through
Speaker 3: that and that discomfort and that silence, like things are changing,
Speaker 3: things are changing slowly, and that uncertainty is something that
Speaker 3: I've spent a whole life trying to rescue other people
Speaker 3: from myself first and foremost, I suppose, And once I
Speaker 3: learned to live with that, I don't know what's going
Speaker 3: to happen next, but I can't do it, things started
Speaker 3: to really shift from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, uncertainty is challenging for many people. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's also the nature of life, right, we just don't
Speaker 2: know what's going to happen. But I mean, certainly there
Speaker 2: is the advice who don't negotiate against yourself. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: that it is in that silence where somebody is deciding
Speaker 2: what their counteroffer is going to be, but you don't
Speaker 2: need to make the counteroffer for them.
Speaker 3: Very very well, said I wish I had heard that
Speaker 3: twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: So, I mean you've written people listening to this movie
Speaker 2: Beyonest Song, it sounds like Amy's are perfectionist. But you've
Speaker 2: said you don't really like that word perfectionist.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3: So in the book, I go through all the different
Speaker 3: forms of advice that I have received that women tend
Speaker 3: to see when we say that we're overwhelmed, that we
Speaker 3: can't do it all, that we're we really need some
Speaker 3: help in the situation written. What we tend to get
Speaker 3: back is advice to fix ourselves, and I think a
Speaker 3: perfectionist is certainly one of those things. Stop being a perfectionist.
Speaker 3: You have too much to do because you're trying to
Speaker 3: make everything perfect. And I think I took that on
Speaker 3: for a long time, like, oh, that's right, I'm such
Speaker 3: a perfectionist, And then I really stopped and thought about it,
Speaker 3: and I thought, you know, that doesn't really resonate for me.
Speaker 3: A perfectionist, to me is somebody who is so caught.
Speaker 3: And also, perfectionism is something that is primarily applied to women.
Speaker 3: It's really hard to find men out there self identifying
Speaker 3: as perfectionists and talking about how they get in their
Speaker 3: own way. But I know I accomplish a lot, I
Speaker 3: get through a lot. It's just I have a lot
Speaker 3: on my plate, and I do know how to not
Speaker 3: sweat the small stuff. I don't care what my kitchen
Speaker 3: sink looks like. I don't care what my my hair
Speaker 3: looks like when I go to yoga, Like, I'm not
Speaker 3: that kind of person who is so overcome with having
Speaker 3: everything to be perfect that I can't get enough done.
Speaker 3: That's definitely not my problem. My problem is I simply
Speaker 3: have too much to do because I've taken too much on,
Speaker 3: which I think is a different problem. And when you're
Speaker 3: fed back, we'll stop being a perfectionist or get a
Speaker 3: sense of humor or these things that are about go
Speaker 3: change this failing in yourself and then the fact that
Speaker 3: you have too much to do will magically resolve. Well,
Speaker 3: it doesn't work, and I love an assignment. So I
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time trying each of these methods,
Speaker 3: right to lean in to care less, I mean, I
Speaker 3: did them all, and none of them resolved the situation.
Speaker 3: It's the situation that sometimes has to be really addressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although when we do have too much to do,
Speaker 2: I mean, we still have to deal with what is
Speaker 2: right in front of us. Yes, So I'm curious what
Speaker 2: does your planning process look like? I mean, I know,
Speaker 2: for me, dealing with the entirely huge pile of stuff
Speaker 2: professionally and personally often at least partly a matter of
Speaker 2: figuring out what exactly is in the pile and then
Speaker 2: roughly when the things will be addressed in the pile.
Speaker 3: That's the personal Kamband method that I learned about when
Speaker 3: I was researching this book. Jim Benson sort of took
Speaker 3: the Kamband method and adjusted it for personal use. And
Speaker 3: that's his sort of basic thing, that you have to
Speaker 3: engage with the entirety of all the things you could
Speaker 3: be doing. And he says write them on post it notes,
Speaker 3: which I do find really helps me get out the
Speaker 3: post it notes. Write each thing, the dry cleaners, and
Speaker 3: the draft of the chapter four, they each get a
Speaker 3: post it note, and you engage with them all. I
Speaker 3: use different color post it notes for different parts of
Speaker 3: my life. Then you pick three and you put them
Speaker 3: in your doing column, and you leave the other ones alone,
Speaker 3: and you do the three. And then when as you
Speaker 3: do each one of the three, you move it to
Speaker 3: the done column. And you can't move anything into the
Speaker 3: doing column until you've moved one of your three things
Speaker 3: to done. Now, my doing column always has like seven
Speaker 3: things in it, not three. But when I'm feeling like
Speaker 3: today is one of those days that I feel like
Speaker 3: I have seven hundred things to do and I need
Speaker 3: to have first engaged with. Yep, here's everything I have
Speaker 3: to do. I won't do it all. That's okay, Let's
Speaker 3: pick the three things that are jumping out at me
Speaker 3: right now as either the most urgent or just the
Speaker 3: most I feel like doing that right now, right, and
Speaker 3: do those three and don't engage with the entirety of
Speaker 3: my list while I'm doing those things, just engage with
Speaker 3: the next three things. It really helps me get more
Speaker 3: done and feel less panicked.
Speaker 2: Less panic to get over that paralysis if I have
Speaker 2: one hundred things to day, so I'm going to score
Speaker 2: Instagram instead, right right, yeah, exactly, which can be fun, yes,
Speaker 2: but maybe a little.
Speaker 1: Bit less productive than we might like.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, We're gonna take one more quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then I will be back with more from
Speaker 2: Amy Wilson. Well, I am back interviewing Amy Wilson, who
Speaker 2: is the author of the brand new book Happy to
Speaker 2: Help Adventures of a People Pleaser, various essays on her
Speaker 2: life as attempting to deal with all that there is
Speaker 2: to do way too.
Speaker 1: Much for many of us.
Speaker 4: So, Amy, we always.
Speaker 2: Like to hear about people's routines on this show. I
Speaker 2: understand that you have a morning routine.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 4: Like most people.
Speaker 3: I think my calendar lives on my laptop slash phone.
Speaker 3: But I really am sort of a paper person. So
Speaker 3: I've found a middle path, which as I get up
Speaker 3: and make my coffee, then I sit down and I
Speaker 3: actually have a remarkable tablet that I use now instead
Speaker 3: of paper because it saves paper, but also because I
Speaker 3: find I really like it and it keeps everything in
Speaker 3: one place. It's all in there somewhere. I sit down
Speaker 3: with my calendar for the day and I just sketch out.
Speaker 3: I have a a PDF of the day's calendar that
Speaker 3: I pull up and I just copy it over longhand
Speaker 3: onto my day, and doing that helps me engage with
Speaker 3: what I have to do that day. And then I
Speaker 3: see the blocks that I might have left, and then
Speaker 3: I pull the things from my to do list that
Speaker 3: seem either the most urgent or the most call to
Speaker 3: me the most for some reason, and I fill those
Speaker 3: in and I plan my day. And I don't beat
Speaker 3: myself up too much. If by two o'clock I didn't
Speaker 3: get that researched and I was supposed to do, I
Speaker 3: can adjust. But engaging with my day very carefully before
Speaker 3: I begin it really helps me. Not I don't have
Speaker 3: the panicle like what am I supposed to be? What
Speaker 3: am I supposed to be? Doing. I know because I
Speaker 3: kind of looked at it at the beginning of the
Speaker 3: day and I make enough room for what I need
Speaker 3: to do and leave the rest behind. That's really saved me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, limited to do lists they are always always good.
Speaker 2: But what does the day actually look like then?
Speaker 3: For you?
Speaker 2: I mean, are you generally working like nine to five
Speaker 2: or is it more all over the map.
Speaker 3: It's more all over the map because I'm either recording
Speaker 3: podcast episodes or researching podcast episodes, or you know, hopping
Speaker 3: on ten others zooms. But I try to block things
Speaker 3: out and if I have a chance to go to
Speaker 3: the library. I live right near Columbia University, so I
Speaker 3: belong to Columbia's libraries, and there's a special library that
Speaker 3: I go to when I want to write or really concentrate.
Speaker 3: And having that separate space where I can unplug and
Speaker 3: not look at my kitchen or whatever is really where
Speaker 3: I get my concentrated work done. When I'm in a
Speaker 3: writing season, I get up early and go do that first.
Speaker 3: I find that if I can write from seven to
Speaker 3: nine thirty or ten and get it done, and then
Speaker 3: I can go on and feel great about my day.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm not writing, So I'm trying to get
Speaker 3: in some exercise or yoga first because I feel like
Speaker 3: I have too much. I wake up panicked, so I
Speaker 3: need to relax and do some exercise and then get
Speaker 3: to my day.
Speaker 4: But I find that.
Speaker 3: Early early part of the day is it's where I
Speaker 3: do my best work, no matter what it is, So
Speaker 3: I don't want to necessarily waste it on peloton if
Speaker 3: I have a writing deadline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of us have found that
Speaker 2: our most product of time does tend to be that morning.
Speaker 1: And maybe for some people it's like four am. Maybe
Speaker 1: for a lot of us it's more like eight am. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, making sure that it is.
Speaker 2: For what we want to give it to, right, right,
Speaker 2: and not giving that time away to something that is
Speaker 2: requires less folks, that's right, just sets the tone for
Speaker 2: the whole day.
Speaker 3: If I really have something, oh I don't know, taxes
Speaker 3: or something, you know, a presentation that I'm really dreading,
Speaker 3: I often use cave Day, which is group accountability. Sign
Speaker 3: up for it and you join. They have all kinds
Speaker 3: of caves that are scheduled, say once starts at twelve thirty.
Speaker 3: You log on. It's a group zoom. You can unmute
Speaker 3: yourself or not. You say, hey, I'm Amy and today
Speaker 3: I'm working at my taxes, and then that you start
Speaker 3: and it's just group accountability. And you sort of promised
Speaker 3: these strangers on the internet that you weren't going to
Speaker 3: look up from your taxes for fifty minutes. You're not
Speaker 3: going to look at your phone. You're not going to
Speaker 3: walk away. And I love it. And when I and again,
Speaker 3: I'll go through seasons of using it and not using
Speaker 3: it when my list gets so long again, it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: one thing at a time, and then commit to that
Speaker 3: one thing at a time. And sometimes strangers in the
Speaker 3: internet are very helpful.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: What was it called again, cave day, caveday dot org day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all.
Speaker 2: Right, so anyone's looking for some external accountability and I
Speaker 2: don't know, your friends are busy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is something you can do.
Speaker 3: It helps, It really helps.
Speaker 1: So I'm very curious.
Speaker 2: You know, we always like to talk about ways we
Speaker 2: have made our days better. It sounds like maybe cave
Speaker 2: day is helping you with that too. But is there
Speaker 2: anything you've done recently to take a day from great
Speaker 2: to awesome?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: There is I live in New York City, where you
Speaker 3: can do you know, three hundred things on a Friday night,
Speaker 3: and so you do none of them, so you sit
Speaker 3: home and watch Netflix. And I've sort of resolved recently
Speaker 3: that if I am going to keep living here, I
Speaker 3: need to take advantage of things or else live somewhere
Speaker 3: that's a little easier to live. So my spouse and
Speaker 3: I went and heard zydeco music near Time Square. Zydeco
Speaker 3: is like Cajun New Orleans sort of music, with lots
Speaker 3: of accordion and washboard and stuff. I can't tell you why.
Speaker 3: It is the happiest music there is. And I love
Speaker 3: this music. It puts me in such a good mood.
Speaker 3: So we went with another couple and had burgers and
Speaker 3: beers and learned how to zoda go dance, and we
Speaker 3: did zada go dancing, and it just was one of
Speaker 3: those things where you realize, like, wow, there are people
Speaker 3: out there who are really good zoa go dancers in
Speaker 3: this band on stage were absolutely incredible Louisiana's and half
Speaker 3: of them had ever been in New York City before,
Speaker 3: and it just just like this little corner of the
Speaker 3: world that people are that you barely even knew about that.
Speaker 3: People are huge experts and huge artists, and it just
Speaker 3: made me so happy to try something new and hear
Speaker 3: this happy music and not have to get anything out
Speaker 3: of it, you know what I mean. I learned how
Speaker 3: to Cajun dance. I'm terrible, whatever, it doesn't matter. And
Speaker 3: to be in community like that, it was so much
Speaker 3: better than staying home and watching Netflix. I was so
Speaker 3: glad I did it. Yeah, So how do you find
Speaker 3: things like that? I mean this is always the problem.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, there's a million things going on.
Speaker 3: You know some of them, you don't know some of them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: where do you look for adventures? I this one I
Speaker 3: knew because there are just those like really cool women
Speaker 3: out there that start these newsletters, right, and so this
Speaker 3: one is a real estate agent I know, and she
Speaker 3: sends out this newsletter every couple of months, like, here
Speaker 3: are these these fun things that are going on in
Speaker 3: New York that you should know about, and she listed it.
Speaker 3: There's there's a Zodago thing and they have dance lessons.
Speaker 3: And I saw it probably two months ago, and I
Speaker 3: put it on my calendar and not actually think good,
Speaker 3: I'd actually go and then that night I actually went.
Speaker 3: And I feel like I am not the great connector
Speaker 3: and the great like extravert that brings people together, but
Speaker 3: I've learned to attach, you know, hitch my wagon to
Speaker 3: those stars because they know where the fun is and
Speaker 3: then you just show up and you're part of the group.
Speaker 1: That's true. Well, always better to have an adventure than
Speaker 1: a not advice.
Speaker 2: That's kind of my full, lush life. So Amy, what
Speaker 2: are you looking forward to these days?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm honestly really looking forward to this book
Speaker 3: being out in the world because I really first through
Speaker 3: the podcast and then through this book. I really like
Speaker 3: connecting with women and getting them to kind of think
Speaker 3: about their lives, but also getting them to feel better
Speaker 3: about themselves, because I just think we get so much.
Speaker 3: We're just told to fix ourselves every time we pick
Speaker 3: up our phones, and I just think some of us,
Speaker 3: all of us, take some of it on, some of
Speaker 3: us take all of it on. And I just want
Speaker 3: to get to like one reader at a time and say,
Speaker 3: you know what, there's nothing wrong with you. Your life
Speaker 3: is just hard right now, so take a deep breath
Speaker 3: and then start engaging with how you're going to fix it.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that message is really going to
Speaker 3: help the person who really needs to hear it, and
Speaker 3: so I'm just really looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, you guys can all pick up a copy of
Speaker 2: Happy to Help And where else can people find you?
Speaker 3: What Fresh hel podcast is at whatfreshellpodcast dot com or
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to this podcast, and you can find
Speaker 3: me my events and things like that at Amy Wilson
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: Excellent, Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thanks to everyone for listening to one of these longer episodes.
Speaker 2: If you have feedback for me about this or any
Speaker 2: other episode, you are welcome to reach out to me
Speaker 2: at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this.
Speaker 2: Is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making the
Speaker 2: most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 2: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 2: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 2: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 2: listen to your favorite shows.