Opening Reflections: Why Personal Reinvention Matters
HOST (Michelle Dempsey-Multack): Amanda, you’ve built companies, raised capital, and faced the personal challenge of divorce while in the public eye. What does reinvention mean to you today?
GUEST (Amanda Goetz): Reinvention isn’t about leaving your past behind. It’s about carrying the lessons forward while reshaping who you want to become.
Reinvention as an ongoing process, not a single decision
The intersection of professional ambition and personal healing
Owning your story to find clarity and power
QUOTE: “You don’t reinvent by starting from scratch. You reinvent yourself by deciding what deserves to come with you into the next chapter.”
What Happens When Ambition and Identity Collide?
HOST: How did building and exiting your business affect your identity during divorce?
AMANDA: For years, my sense of worth was tied to achievement. Divorce forced me to ask: Who am I without the title, without the marriage?
Struggles of identity detachment for high-achievers
Importance of separating external validation from inner value
Realigning goals with personal fulfillment, not societal expectation
How Do You Balance Single Parenting with Entrepreneurial Demands?
HOST: You’ve spoken openly about being a single parent while running multiple ventures. How do you manage both?
AMANDA: Balance doesn’t exist the way we’re taught. Instead, I focus on integration. Sometimes business gets more attention, sometimes my kids do. The key is to remove guilt from that equation.
Rethinking “balance” as integration
Prioritizing presence over perfection
Building support systems to sustain both family and business
QUOTE: “I stopped chasing balance. I started chasing presence.”
Why Vulnerability is a Strategic Advantage
HOST: Many professionals fear that showing vulnerability weakens their credibility. What’s your take?
AMANDA: Vulnerability has been my biggest unlock. It builds trust with investors, customers, and even my children. Sharing honestly about failure creates stronger relationships than projecting perfection ever could.
Vulnerability as a leadership asset
Emotional transparency reshaping workplace culture
The role of authenticity in building brand and personal credibility
Actionable Lessons for Leaders, Founders, and Parents
Reinvention is iterative — keep what serves you, release what doesn’t.
Detach worth from roles and titles; identity is deeper than labels.
Integration > balance: accept that different seasons demand different priorities.
Vulnerability isn’t weakness; it’s a credibility multiplier.
QUOTE: “The moment I stopped hiding the messy parts, I became more effective as a leader, a parent, and a human.”
Final Reflection
Reinvention after divorce isn’t just a personal milestone, it’s a professional strategy. Amanda Goetz shows us that embracing authenticity, building resilience, and leading with vulnerability creates a path not only to healing, but also to sustainable success.
Raw Transcript:
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The use of the CDFA designation does not permit Wells Fargo advisors or its financial advisors to provide legal advice, nor is it meant to imply that the firm or its associates are acting as experts in the field. Wells Fargo advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, member SIPC, a registered broker dealer, and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo and Company. Welcome back to another episode of the Moving On Method.
I’m really excited to introduce you to my friend Amanda today. This episode, this podcast has brought me to such amazing humans to have such incredible, uplifting conversations. And this one is really going to be for the mom who feels like she’s constantly doing for everybody else, having to meet all these expectations and needs, working, momming, feeling like she can’t check all the boxes in one day.
We have to do away with the need for toxic grit. And that’s why I have Amanda Getz with me. She’s an author, a CMO, a badass babe, a mom of three, divorced and rebuilt, and her soon to be released book, Toxic Grit, comes out very soon.
Amanda, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I’m so glad we finally get to meet in person.
I know. I feel like I watched your content and it got me through so much of my post-divorce, that time post-divorce when I was finding my footing and your content helped me so much. I’m so excited to jam.
And you just have this effortless air about you, about doing all of the things that require a lot of effort, I’d say. And you’ve built so much for yourself. And I just kind of want to hear your story, especially because you are divorced and you have done so well in spite of it.
So share what you’re willing to share. I think really the divorce did help be a catalyst for so many things. So my quick background, I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois, first generation college grad.
And I was kind of taught from a very young age that a lot of my identity came from my relationship status. Like marriage was, you know, my parents got married when they were 18 and 19. And so… Are they still married? They’re still married.
And never been on an airplane. Like I grew up very small town, USA. Kind of love that.
I’m sorry. I think there’s something like we’ve gone so far from wholesome in today’s world. I kind of love that.
But anyway. It’s so funny. I spent so much of my childhood wanting to get out of my small town and now I love it.
You can appreciate it. Yeah. Like even on my book tour, I’m going to my high school to remind people like, there’s a whole world out there, but also this is beautiful and you’re learning so much.
But um, so yeah, I, I went off to college and got engaged my sophomore year of college, got married my junior year of college, and then went on to have a bigger career. Like I, I went to Ernst & Young and then I came and managed a brand for a celebrity wedding planner in New York City. Then I started my first startup, which was a tech company for the wedding industry.
Fast forward, I was leading marketing at The Knot, the wedding company. When I filed for divorce. Ironic.
Right. The amount of times I wanted to change the, the headline of, you know, like plan for a marriage, not just a wedding day, but yeah. So I was leading marketing there.
I had three kids under the age of four going through a divorce. That was around 2018. And so 2020 was kind of my year that I woke up.
I was like, okay, this is my year. I’ve got my footing back. We’ve got a, you know, co-parenting schedule and then COVID happens.
I had to, we moved back in together to raise the three kids for a chunk of time, which was so common for people and COVID either and separating and having to stay in the same house or yeah. So that was, I would say, probably one of the darker times having to re kind of go back into some old patterns and triggers and all of that. And then we got out of that, moved to Miami and I started a VC backed startup over COVID built that for the last couple of years, sold that in 2023, and now have been kind of doing fractional CMO work and then starting to write this book a couple of years ago.
So that’s kind of how we got here today. Amazing. It’s interesting because all of what you’ve done requires a lot of this so-called grit or self-sacrifice.
And I very much am a victim of like that martyr, you know, I’m going to do everything for everyone else. And then you’re wonder why I’m overstimulated at 6 PM in the kitchen and want to like snap at everyone. But then there is that also call inside of me sparked by divorce of like, keep building, keep growing, hustle, have something for yourself, but also be the best mom ever.
And it’s taxing. It is so taxing. And it’s a big topic on social media right now, obviously.
I think guilt is something that is infused to everything that we try to do. Right. And I think the genesis of this book was really this binary buckets that we feel where, okay, you’re either a girl boss and you’re leaning in and you’re breaking glass ceilings and you’re building, you know, financial stability for yourself or, and when I became a single mom, I was like, it’s an aunt.
I want to meet my kids’ needs and bake pies and like, you know, find a partner again and be independent, but still find love. And I’m going to go build something of impact. And that’s aligned with my mission.
And I want to change, you know, change a small part of the world if I can. So it’s the and that is really hard for us. It’s the and, especially in light of the fact that, and not to be gender specific, but men don’t always have to worry about the and as much.
Like I do it all and make sure everybody’s taken care of when they get home at the end of the day, there’s fresh food on the There’s food made already for lunch the next day, everything’s in order. And my husband comes home and like, you know, gets to enjoy the rest of the night with the family as he so chooses. And there’s no pressure there.
You know, it’s not like he’s, he’s stressed out about rushing home from work to make dinner or who’s got to be picked up where, or did the dog get picked up from daycare? I mean, all the things, you know, and not that I’m complaining or want to put that on him, but it’s no wonder why when someone’s breathing too loud next to me at 6.30 PM, I want to run away. Yeah. Yeah.
So a couple of things that you just called out that I think is really important is, you know, I really look at my life and say, where is the sanity tax? Meaning I will spend money to get time. And so important for single moms to hear because also the single mom who has been told by her soon to be ex or ex-husband that you’ll never be able to make it on your own, or you’re going to make it without me is now going to overperform subconsciously and burn themselves out. And overperform, not just in work, but like, I have to make home cooked meals every night.
Cause I can’t, they’re going, my co-parent will, if they find out I’m ordering Uber eats every night, they’re going to say like, I’m not feeding the kids, healthy meals, all of the stress. Right. So first thing I did when I moved to Miami, I went on TaskRabbit and I found a chef at a decent price.
I was like, I don’t have to cook the meals because as soon as I’m done with work, I have to jump in the car and I have to drive and go get the kids. And when I get home, chances are, I’m probably ordering Uber eats on the way home. Cause I’m too stressed.
Okay. Sanity tax. What did Uber eats cost me every single week plus groceries.
I could afford a chef and now the kids come home and they have a healthy home cooked meal. I didn’t cook it, but that’s okay. And so I had to unlearn what the shoulds are like, oh, I should be making home cooked meals.
Recently, as I’m preparing for the book tour, I’m like, oh, I should be picking the kids up from school every day, but I have to be online and I have to be doing stuff until really five or six o’clock. Yeah. School doesn’t get, you know, school doesn’t go until five or six o’clock.
Right. So sanity tax. I hired a babysitter.
She’s a freshman in college. She’s, she goes and does the pickup. She brings them home, gets the homework done, gets them bathed so that when I come out of my office, I’ve got homework done, kids fed, there’s food in the fridge from the chef.
And now I get to enjoy them. Oh, I love that. And yeah, look, it’s not feasible for the majority of people to outsource everything.
But I will say that when I was a single mom, finances were tight. Like I was, I was making it to the end of each month. Just, you know, I mean, I, I still talk about it with my daughter because we joke about how she only used to eat mac and cheese at that age.
She was two. And she was like, how come you didn’t get me more stuff? I’m like, baby. Yeah.
I went to the market once a week and spend $60. Yeah. That was one rotisserie chicken, a few bags of lettuce and mac and cheese.
Like that’s what it had to be. But at a certain point, because at the same time I was really trying to build something where I could earn my own income. That was my only choice.
Yeah. I hired a mother’s helper, not a babysitter in the sense where I was leaving, but she came over three afternoons a week so that I could answer emails in peace. Exactly.
So that she could take Bella outside for a little bike ride and I could manage what I needed to manage around the house. And it meant I had to sacrifice other things, but there was a lot of sanity gained. And so I, I, I really appreciate that term sanity tax.
So you, you, you really just described what character theory is, which is in my book. Okay. So character theory is this notion of we have all these characters inside of us that are really vying for attention in the movie of our life.
And burnout is really coming from and guilt is really coming from us trying to find alignment within those characters. But like, let’s separate those for a second. The work version of me and the mom version of me don’t have the same goals or values.
It’s profound. Because if I were to let the work version of me call all the shots in my life, I would have my phone in my hand until I go to bed. I would respond to every Slack, every email.
But she doesn’t get to call all the shots because there’s another version of me that has different values and different goals. So what you just described with the mother’s helper is the ability to compartmentalize that role and put it into a confinement and then transition into the next role instead of trying to merge the two because they don’t actually fit well together. There’s no alignment between those two.
And I found that during COVID. So during COVID, I, I, I rented a house out of New York city just to be with the kids full time. And I had to come out of my office every day and I would go right into mom mode and I would find it’s so hard because the version of me that cares about work is so much more assertive and like on and constantly like really thinking about things.
And then the version of me that’s a mom, she is so silly and goofy and wants to joke and be like, and those two, again, I needed to create transition sequences. Yes, that is. I’m so happy.
You’re going to bring that up. I was going to share something about that, but I want to hear what yours is because this has saved me. Yeah.
That’s a whole chapter in this book of creating your transition sequences between these characters and versions of yourself that maybe don’t have much alignment. Now, some characters do have alignment and they help you unlock another part of you. But for me, I, I use water commute bath or shower where I go and the kids will be like, are you going to go become a mommy? And I’m like, I’m going to go become a mommy.
I love that you’re engaging them in the process. Yeah. I’m like, guys, I’ll put on an episode of Bluey and I’m like, in 20 minutes, I’m going to come back and I’ll be a mommy.
I love it. And modeling for them, that taking a time out and listening to your body. There’s nothing more important for me than encouraging my daughter to listen to her body.
What is it telling you? And for years, I tried to create this routine where she’d come in from school, we’d rush right into homework. Now it’s like, I also need a time out from one transition to the next. So we will take that 30 minutes, sometimes together, just laying and talking, sometimes separate to give her brain a break.
But that’s, that’s so crucial to allow yourself to develop your routines in your home for you and your kids that don’t necessarily look like what every Instagram post is telling you to do. But I found that. So the big joke right now is, so my daughter used to go to school literally a quarter mile from my house.
I would walk, pick her up. Love. Right.
So I would work until 2.45, walk and she would come out at 2.55. And I’m, I’m helping people with their emotions all day. So she was in fourth grade last year. So she would come out with her big fourth grade emotions.
And, and I, by 4.00 PM, I was like, tuckered out, put me in bed, shut the lights. It was too much. And then this year she’s now going to school a half hour away.
I have to shut myself off, get in the car, go sit in carpool. And I’ve got like an hour and a half before I see her between work and her, which is a blessing. I know that not everybody has that opportunity, but even if it were 10 minutes, I put on my favorite podcast, David Guillaume, all day.
I re-listened to episodes all the time. I answer emails in the car. Maybe I check in with my grandma.
I, anything to disconnect me. And even though the schlep and the traffic and the carpool is a lot, it has made me show up so much better to her when she gets in the car. I love that.
You have a natural, I mean, commutes naturally build in transitions. Yes. And, and we, we shit on them, but they can be so helpful.
Like I remember my mom used to always say to me, enjoy that time in the car. Who cares if there’s traffic? This is your disconnect. Right.
And now that our kind of first and second worlds have combined for many of us, if we work from home and we don’t have that commute, we have to kind of find a way to build that in. But also what about those other versions of you that maybe don’t have or haven’t been written back into your movie for a while. So I like to, in my coaching sessions, I’ll be like, okay, before you had kids, before you had this role, what did you do? Like, what did you do for fun? Where did you travel? Fun.
Right. Yeah. And it’s like, Oh, if I asked myself that question, like once every three months, I went dancing with my girlfriends.
Like I would get a little drunk and go dancing. And I loved it. And so that’s a version of me that lives inside of me that when I am so busy and with kids, that gets, that character gets written out of the movie.
But if I look at all of my human needs, chances are, they’re not all being met by one, two, or even three of those characters. If I put partner into as the third character, I call those the big three. Even being with my partner now doesn’t meet all of my needs.
Right. Nor should it. There’s still other… That’s an important topic in itself.
Yeah. And that’s okay. And that’s what character theory is about.
You have all of these parts of yourself. There’s a part of you that craves independence and solo time and solo exploration and solo personal development. And yet when you think about vacations, we resort only to vacations with our partner or our kids.
A vacation with kids is just… A trip. Work. Parenting.
Yeah. So why aren’t you taking a solo trip, even if it was just a staycation for yourself, to check in and say, who am I, independent of all these roles I play for other people in this version of me, what does she need right now? You’re giving us so much permission right now, Amanda. Permission is my word for 2025, by the way.
I do a lot of spiritual stuff and I work with somebody who helps me sort of realign my energy and channel. I love that. And in the beginning of the year, she was like, I was thinking about you.
What you do is you give people permission to live life a certain way after divorce. And I’m like, but I’m not giving myself permission. So this has been my year of permission, right? To say, I don’t want the wife role right now.
I don’t want the mom role right now. I want the me role. Even if it’s my hour, like tonight, I told my husband, go to the gym after work, but come home 10 minutes early because I need to go to my yoga class tonight.
That is my literal crime prevention right now. So that’s my me time. And a few years ago, I wouldn’t have felt as confident to say that, and I’ll tell you why.
And this may resonate with you and it definitely will resonate with our listeners. I hear from my clients, and it happened to me, where when I finally did feel brave enough to call in for help with the babysitter that came in the afternoons, even though I was there, my ex’s narrative was like, can’t do it all by yourself. Can’t handle it.
Or, oh, you hire a chef, must be nice. There’s this stigma that comes along with asking for help that you can’t do it all by yourself. And then that guilt and shame piece comes in.
So I’m wondering if you face that also. I have done a lot of work on just both therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ve done ketamine therapy.
I’ve done a lot of work to understand whose voice is speaking to me when those voices come up. Is that my mom’s voice saying, oh, I stayed home with my kids and I never left and I never got a break? Is it societal voices? I think it’s a combination. It’s all of them, right? Is it generational? Um, and most of the time it’s not 39 year old Amanda’s voice.
It’s not. So if it’s not the, the current version of me, that’s done a lot of work saying that then, okay, that’s not for my script. And that is really a key piece of character theory, which is understanding who gave that characters who wrote that script for them.
So we can take the, the character that wants pleasure. There’s a version of you that, and look, as someone who, after my divorce was like, wait, I get to have sex outside of marriage? Like what? Yeah. What world is this? Right.
I had a whole chapter, two chapters on that in my book, because it’s like, it’s, it’s scary. And then also freeing and then also brings up shame and all these feelings. But like, right.
If there’s a part of you that wanted that. Right. Who wrote that script? Where’s that shame coming from? Why did I think that this is only in the container of a relationship and why we’re all of that.
Right. But there’s a character inside of us that craves that intimacy, that connection, that desire to be desired. And again, going back to transitions, how do I allow that character to come out? And she, that character doesn’t like kids, doesn’t like work.
She needs separation. And so if it’s a week that we have the kids and we’re trying to build that into ours, he, my partner knows he has to put the kids to bed. I need to be separated.
Right. I need to go take a bath. I need to allow that character to be able to have screen time.
So I think it’s really important that when we think about commutes, most of the time we think about it as work to kids. But when you start to, I have a transition sequence to get into the workout version of me. I have literally, I work in the morning, I’ll write in the morning and then I have this little transition sequence.
I go, I grab the same energy drink. I have this one playlist that starts and it just is like a nineties pop, like, you know, workout playlist. And then I literally say to myself, like, all right, we’ve got a workout.
And that way, when I go into the gym, I’m now embodying that version of myself that cares about my health, that wants to get stronger, that has goals in the gym. And that version of myself doesn’t care that a Slack message came through. They have a goal and it doesn’t care like what Amazon order I need to think about for whatever, for the kids or, you know, that version of me doesn’t care about that stuff.
And it’s, you know, this is why self-awareness at any stage of your life is important, but especially after a divorce, when life is going to demand a little bit more of you and it takes a lot of discipline. It’s a lot. So I’m wondering if you can share where this incredible sense of discipline comes from.
There’s two traps that I think people don’t realize they fall into constantly over and over again, the significance trap and the urgency trap. Okay. I’m all ears.
So when everything is important, nothing is. And when everything is urgent, nothing is. So when a Slack message or an email comes in and they’re the version of me that cares about my career is like, ah, I’ve got to respond to this.
Do I, is that really significant and urgent? And then, so I use a framework called 10, 10, 10. Could it wait 10 minutes? If yes, great. Could it wait 10 hours? If yes, great.
Could it wait 10 days? And when you start to t-shirt size these things, kid gets, kid is sick at school. You get a call urgent, right? Boss sends an email to asking you to check something out. Probably could wait 10 minutes for you to finish that set and stay in workout mode.
So many times friends texting you, I have said to my friends, especially in busy weeks when I was a divorced parent, like, Hey, the next three weeks are crazy. I’ve got the kids. The majority of the time I’m going to be slow to respond.
And it’s all about managing expectations of other people. And also for yourself to say, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve communicated when I’m available or if I’m in a busy season, when they can hear from me, when they will hear from me. And chances are when you communicate that they’re like, don’t worry about it.
We know you’re busy. Yeah. I think we have this, this, these underlying things that for me, again, took a ton of work in therapy to say, okay, when I am scared to not respond to something fast, a text message from my friend, an email from my boss, what is actually happening? It’s usually I’m scared.
I’m going to lose their love. Oh my God. Same, right? That fear of like, if I don’t present myself in this moment to them, they won’t need me anymore.
Right. Okay. So now we healed ourselves.
We now know where it’s coming from. Are you going to lose your friend’s love? If you don’t respond to that text message in 10 minutes? No. If you do, that’s not a friend, right? Are you going to lose your job? No, no.
If you do good, because not a great job to have toxic. Right, right. So these are just stories that we’re telling ourselves.
So it’s all about giving yourself the awareness to just say, that was, that was a script written for me. That’s not mine. And then using these tools, like 10, 10, 10 to be like, no, that can wait.
Like, I don’t need to call the exterminator right now. Right. And I have a very, so I have a very tactical thing that I use as well.
So many times, especially as single moms, we’re constantly like, ah, there’s so many little things bouncing around our head, like add in the ADHD that I was diagnosed with later on in life. And it, it is, it is just my brain. It was terrible before I got medicated.
So I call a lot of these mosquito tasks. They just are buzzing around our brain and they’re, they’re consuming a lot of cognitive load, right? Whether consciously or subconsciously. And they exhaust your body.
They do. When you have that many things that you’re thinking about, it’s exhausting. Yeah.
So I’m always about like decision fatigue and how much cognitive load you actually are allowing yourself to have in a moment. I am wanting to be a hundred percent present in this thing that I’m doing right now. And then I will transition to the next thing and try to give a hundred percent.
So if something buzzes in my brain, like today, I was like, crap, I got to wash the basketball uniform. Cause he has another game coming, right? Okay. I have a mosquito task list in my phone.
Oh, wow. And if it buzzes in, I get it out. I love that for you.
That’s smart because I don’t remember the things because of my. But subconsciously your brain is trying to remember it because you, you said to yourself, I need to remember this. So subconsciously the programs are still trying to run.
This is why when I’m working, I’m a, when I teach productivity for people, it’s like, how many tabs do you have open right now? Truly your brain is subconsciously trying to remember that you have all these things to do. It’s it’s so, this is, there’s so much tangible information here. Like it just, every part of it hits a nerve for me in a good way because it all resonates so much.
Like, I mean, for two weeks now, I’ve known that we were podcasting today. I like to get my makeup done before I podcast. And I, I knew like, I mean, I’ve had the same makeup artist for years.
I just imagined. I already called her and every day I’m like, I got to check in with Maria. I got to check in with Maria, make sure she’s still good for early Wednesday morning last night, laying in bed.
Holy shit. I forgot to text Maria. I don’t have her in my calendar, which means she didn’t send me the calendar invite, which means I never texted her.
And I reached out and I was like, please say no. If that’s what your gut instinct is, but are you available tomorrow morning? Because it’s like, I thought about it, but then also the hot water man came to the door or Bella asked for something. It’s, it’s, it’s endless.
I love this mosquito task list. I’m taking so much from this for me personally. Well, and also it’s like bills and parking tickets for me, like all these things that pile up and I’m like, I know I need to do it so I don’t lose my license, but it’s just hard to remember it.
So I keep this mosquito task list. And then every week I have one to one and a half hours, usually on a Friday when my brain wants to kind of shut down anyway. And I’ll just sit down, I’ll set a timer and I’ll just try to crank out as many as possible.
And you just keep going down the list. And that way, Do you ever ask for help with the stuff on the list? Depends. Okay.
Depends. Like for me, I, when I think about delegation, a lot of the times I go back to those two traps, like significance and urgency. There are things on my to do list that haven’t been done for weeks and maybe they don’t ever have to be done.
Okay. Right. Yeah.
And that’s okay. And then when I think about delegation, that’s mostly my work area, but then definitely in family. So I now have an amazing partner who is so hands-on.
Love that. And when it comes to, Do you guys have kids together? Not yet. We’re talking, we’re talking about it.
Obviously, you know, it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of work to start to think about what triggers are going to come up having kids again, and how do I preempt those triggers so that I can come into this as in a present current state and not bring my past trauma into this. But yeah. And so really working with him to understand whose characters being prioritized in what moment when he’s trying to prioritize, you know, work character, but I’m trying to prioritize partner character and we’re missing each other because he’s in work mode.
And I’m like, I just want to cuddle, like let’s talk. Right. And so it’s understanding where we are and how to meet and match up.
This is so great. I want to talk about the book and, but first I want to sort of wrap up from my own ADHD brain. My biggest takeaway so far from this conversation with Amanda, character theory, separating, maybe creating a list.
Who do I have to be in these moments and why? Why do I feel I need to be these things? Is there something I can take off my list? Compartmentalization. How can we separate ourselves with a buffer of transition in between so that we can show up as our best selves after we’ve figured out these different roles? Also writing shit town, the mosquito tasks, the 10, 10, 10 rules. So many tangible takeaways from this.
I feel like you should create a book. Oh, wait, you did. Tell us about Toxic Grit.
It’s beautiful, by the way. Thank you. We’re a pleasure publisher.
This is Sourcebooks. Yeah. Nice.
They’re amazing out of Chicago. And I mean, literally the whole book is, is teaching character theory. It’s helping you meet the characters, rewrite the scripts, understand what intentional imbalance is.
We’re all looking for balance, but balance means balance is bullshit. It means equity or yeah, equity in all these different roles. But I talk about the 10 characters that most women have inside of them.
Imagine a movie with 10 lead characters on screen. That’s, that’s chaotic metaphor for this. Yes, absolutely.
So how do you create and advance your characters, give them character development because that’s a good movie, right? We want each character to have some character development, but not all at the same time. So that’s the intentional imbalance of life to say, what season are you in? And that may be in a day. Today, I’m going to prioritize work mode and mom mode.
I’m not going to probably be the best friend. Probably not going to have sex tonight. Like I’m going to, I’m doing a lot today.
Something’s got to give. Yeah. And that’s okay.
Because I’ve now said that that’s intentional. And also when you have to force yourself to do any of those things that you feel you don’t have space for, and you’re doing it out of obligation, it never feels, never feels good. Never feels intentional.
Resentment. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
All of that. And then you can communicate, hey, like I said to my partner this morning, I am in full work mode all day. And then I got to take the kids.
They have therapy. They have lots of afterschool things tonight. Tonight, I’m going to put the kids to bed and I’m going to watch The Summer I Turned Pretty and go to bed.
And I’ve already communicated. That you’re counting down for that moment. Love.
Yeah. But I’ve already communicated that to him. So now that doesn’t create this rejection moment where I’m like, no, not tonight.
We’ve communicated what roles I’m in. But then also this book helps you to understand how to create transitions in seasons for each of those characters. Because if we wake up and just repeat the same day over and over again, that’s not a fun movie to watch.
And also the characters aren’t happy because some characters aren’t getting any development. This is, this is beautiful. And also really designed for the overstimulated ADHD brain like mine and the mom who feels, I’m divorced now.
I got to do it all. Or they’re going to say, I told you so. Exactly.
Thank you for creating this. So it’s out October, October 21st, October 21st. By the time this airs, that’ll be soon.
Obviously I’m going to link it in all of that. And this is my copy that I can’t wait to read and also share with other professionals that I think it’s ironic, but so many professionals that end up in my industry are, have gone through what we’ve gone through and are also feeling the weight of carrying it all. And, and this is going to be so helpful for so many people.
You have an exciting something coming up, don’t you? A new role you’re taking on? Yeah. Well, I took on a- Can you talk about that? I, I can say that I took on a new, new CMO role for a new company that’s launching next year that I’m very excited about. And then I also will be the host of the next season of the Girl Boss podcast.
Girl Boss was when I started building my own business in 2016. That was like the only account that was geared towards me trying to be a girl boss. And I drew so much inspiration from it.
And it’s, it’s grown and grown and grown. And I love like you are the epitome of what they need to carry this brand on. So I’m so happy for you.
I appreciate that. We’re really excited. It’s going to be called Ambition 2.0 because I think to some women, Girl Boss may give them a bit of an allergic reaction.
It was like, oh, it was about hustle culture and, and only putting that character first. And then what happened? We swung the pendulum over here. And it’s like, no, be- Here I am at home baking bread.
Right. Be in your soft girl era, your lazy girl era. None of these are inherently bad.
Hustle is not inherently bad. It’s when there’s no intention and alignment and spin cycles and, and these check-ins to say, how do I alleviate the intensity in that role so that I can make space for these other versions of me? So yeah, I’m very excited. I’m excited for you.
Thank you. I’ve been like a sideline fan for a long time. Oh my gosh.
No, I mean, I, I, I truly believe in uplifting when we can, you know, you know how many people reach out to be very small creators that are like, you’ve been so supportive of my work. Like, thank you for even answering my DMs. And I’m like, the fact that people thank me for that is- That’s how I feel.
Is exactly what’s wrong with how we view ourselves and our contributions to the world in a society that values likes and follows and this and that. And people reach out to me all the time. How can I, you know, I want to be an author.
How can I do that if I don’t have a big following? You do it because your following is meaningless and I’m always going to be here to uplift. You know, I find you bright, beautiful, strong, both physically and energetically. And so it’s, it’s a pleasure for me to like combine our energies here.
I really am really proud of you. Thank you. As your older friend, I’m two years older than you.
Yeah, I was going to say, don’t say that. It’s funny because there’s, there’s so many, there are so many amazing women like you. And I was just talking, Eve Rotsky is also one of these women who she will never turn down the opportunity to blurb someone’s book.
She’ll read it. And if it’s in alignment, she will blurb it. Like she is there to support people.
And then I’ve come across people who, and mostly men who, you know, I support their work. I help them. And then when time comes, if I’m smaller than them, they won’t help me.
I have helped so many creators bigger than me, women. And when I turned around and asked for help promoting my book, it was crickets. I was like.
So that happened to me. And someone who came on my podcast multiple times to promote herself too. It’s, I have had to do some work in therapy about that.
Yeah. And. But it makes you want to say no to other people because you feel resentful.
Right. So here’s, I’ll give you the, the analogy that my, my therapist gave me and I, if I found it so helpful. So she said, when are you doing gold star behavior? Meaning you’re doing something because you’re hoping they, there will be like this gold star in return and they will do it for you versus.
And what you are such a great example of is you care about uplifting other people. Yeah. And so you’re doing it to uplift other people.
Right. Like I get, other than a nice conversation and friendship with you, I don’t get like, nobody’s patting me on the back for having, you know what I mean? But it’s like the world, even though it’s taken away so much for me and caused me so much pain, it’s also given me so much. And I feel like, I don’t know, I’m, I’m, I’m religious and spiritual.
So I do really feel like the energy you put out. I agree. Is, you know, so I, I don’t know.
I believe. Let that be a lesson to all you ladies who don’t want to let another woman shine. But you’re going to keep shining.
I think it’s, I think the reflection though is real. The other analogy that I use working through this is moths versus fireflies. Like when you’re shining really bright, a lot of moths want, are attracted to a light.
Right. And when I sold my last company, I remember it was crickets. Like I was no longer the shiny founder and I was just kind of doing some fractional CMO work.
And, and I was like, where’d everybody go? Like people weren’t returning my text messages. And I’m like, oh, that was a moth. And then.
Oh, I’m everybody’s friend when they have a new project coming out and then it’s yeah. Right. And it does feel transactional.
And so I had to realize I need to be my own firefly. Like I have to bring my light to everywhere I go. And that’s for me that I’m, I’m lighting up for me so I can see not to attract people.
Light it up ladies. That is, that is a great place to pause. Toxic Grit coming out in just a few weeks.
We are so excited for women like us. I’m going to myself and yes, you know, we are, we are all either burnt out at risk of burnout and needing someone to give us the permission to separate, breathe and prioritize. Amanda, where can everybody find you? Find me at amandaguts.com. I’m being more active on Instagram these days, learning to.
Beautiful Instagram. Thank you. We’re really trying, putting myself out there in that way and visually still a thing for me, but yeah, amandaguts.com. If they want to check out the book, they can go to toxicgrit.com, but it’s at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, all of those things.
It’s going to be on all the pretty tables when you walk into Barnes and Noble, there is no better moment than that, by the way, prepare yourself. If you do any signings locally. Yes, I will be at Miami Book Fair.
Books and books? And books of books. Yeah. Okay.
I did that. That was fun. Okay.
I’m excited. All right. Thank you so much for all of you who tuned in today.
The Moving On Method is here to support you and everything you’ve got going on as you transition from. Separated to divorce, married to separation, co-parenting, co-parenting, co-parenting, all of the things. Make sure you’re taking care of yourselves.
If you need more specific one-on-one help, check out the link in my Instagram bio with a ton of prerecorded courses, webinars, workbooks, things to support you and your children on your journey. And we’ll see you next time.
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