Hey, everybody, and welcome to the best ever you show. I'm your host, Elizabeth here with new author Amber wardel How are you.
I'm doing great?
How are you good? Thank you? Thank you for being here teaching us all about your new book. I don't know if you have a copy or not with you, but I'll just tell everybody the copy of There you go, I see you, How I do.
I'm either.
It's got potato chips on the cover, probably one of the first books ever to have potato chips on the cover. I was going to sit here and like eat Dorito's the whole time I was talking to you. But help beyond beyond self care potato chips. We're going to learn about why you titled it that here. But welcome, Welcome, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me. It's it's a real pleasure to be here.
Yeah. What's it like being a new author.
It's been really exciting, as you know, It's like it's it's a bunch of emotions all tied up together. And I was just reflecting on this this morning, that you know, this book, I finished writing it almost two years ago, and I feel like I'm almost a completely different person, Like I said a few ambers ago wrote this, and
so it's interesting though. It's really cool to get to re experience the book now, like as it's coming out, you know that feeling of like you're falling back in love with it because it's finally coming out.
So that's been really cool. I've been enjoying that process.
It takes a while for books to come out, doesn't it. From when you sign that contract. What's that moment? Like, what was that like for You're like, oh my god, I got a book deal?
Okay, oh man, it was really great. Do you mind if I tell a little story about my agent first?
Please tell everything.
So when I was first shopping around looking for an agent, I had a completely different book than this one. It was a book about my miscarriages and spiritual warfare and kind of my journey through my face through that. And so I was shopping that book around and the agent that I wanted, her name was Rachelle Gardner. She was my top choice, and she got back to me almost immediately and she was like it's a no.
And I was like, no, do you love that?
Yeah? She was like it's a no, but do you have time for a phone call? I would really love to talk to you. And I was like, okay, you know, never never not take an opportunity. So I got on the phone with her and she's like, listen, I actually follow you on TikTok, and I love your voice, I love your message. I love the things that you talk about on your platform which have nothing to do with this book you're trying to publish.
And so she said, do you.
Have any ideas that might be more aligned with what you talk about on your platforms, because I think I would, I would want to represent that. So it was the next day I pitched self Care Potato Chips to her and she said, yes, yes, I want it, and so she signed me and then, you know, I got it written within about six months, and we pitched it and when HCI picked it up, that was probably one of the best days of my life.
Yeah. I have that feeling too, like this is just a great life, the best day of your life. How to explain, right.
But man, you I've had books on best seller lists like I can't even imagine what that's like.
Well, you know, I switched though, you know, I switched over from Hayhouse to HCI, and I wasn't sure when I got my agent, you know, through that process, if anybody was going to pick me up either or take my ideas or switch them or do whatever. So I get the feeling it's get I understand what you're saying. I mean, it's it's it's it's tricky out there, and you know, I think this totally aligns with who you.
I've been watching you on TikTok and now Instagram and seeing your bright, smiley face every day and listening to what you're saying, and you know, and you know, I'm I think I'm probably way older than you. I'm I just turned fifty five, and I relate. And it's cool because I think you have a message that is transcending all ages and spaces and places and things like that.
So I'm pretty happy to have you on Best every year because I know, I know that you're aware of that, and you're not just peered toward people your age, you know, some of us. I look back and I was reading your book. I'm like, and they're done that, and they're done that, and they're done that. A little bit I asked my husband, like, how do I go onto this show without a ben? They're done that attitude. I'm like,
I'm not doing that. I want to hear what you have to say because I completely relate to you, though. I just want you to know that, but I don't have a been there, done that. There's a lot of things that you're doing that I haven't done, you know, a whole There are almost a million people following you on TikTok right now listening to your navigating your life with children, your husband, you're you know, you're an author,
you have your I want to say therapist. I don't know if that's the exact right word, but you know it's actually doctor. Yes, there's a PhD that goes with you as well here in other things. So yeah, it's just amazing.
So when I say I'm sorry, can I say I appreciate that so much because you know, so I'm going to be forty in January. My husband is fifteen years older than me, so he's in his fifties. And when I was writing the book, I very much have this millennial mindset, right, I'm like, oh, I identify as a millennial, and so when I was writing a book, it's very much geared toward millennial women, and even on the back cover copy. It talks about, you know, millennial women and
the publicists that I'm working with. We had a phone call the other day and she was like, she's your agent. She said, why are you Why are you positioning this towards millennials? And I said, well, because I am one, and I feel like I'm probably not going to be
super relatable to other people. And she said, I resonate with this, and that meant so much to me because my next project that I'm working on is called Brave Beyond Thirty, and I'm talking about what it's like navigating getting older, aging out of the male gaze and the invisibility that seems to come with that, and how getting older is this strange paradox of on the one hand, feeling more confident and and knowing yourself better than you ever have, and on the other hand, dealing with some
confidence issues that are imposed on you by the world that aren't even yours.
And so it means a lot.
Like clearly into something that the mail case is still there, the males are just a little older, just butting you know, it doesn't go away. It's a different generation just ages right on with you. For some reason. It's like wow, any but as a human being who's taken. You know, I have this chapter in one of my books somewhere. I don't know where I wrote it exactly, but you know,
I'm taking phone calls in my walk in closet. The kids are like two, four, six, and eight, and I'm like, I just need a second, you know kind of thing. And it's it's that kind of you know, we're navigating that with with tiny children. I was reading. I was reading something where I think it's maybe the end of your book. Actually, not to give it away everybody, but we'll go there spoiler alert, but yeah, there's a book.
You know, it's a whole chapter, whole and I'm going to forgive myself in this moment because here's what I just did. I have a lot of those moments, you know. You know, my kids are twenty, they're twenty. How old are they this year? They're twenty three, twenty five, twenty seven, and twenty nine now, all with their master's degrees. We've got you know, girlfriends and fiances and all this stuff happening,
and it's just it's just different. But you still at moments you know, they'll teach you something or you know it's a constant learning.
Yeah, I think, yeah, oh for sure.
And I'm looking I'm looking forward to those years. You know, there's this funny it's it's weird in motherhood spaces because sometimes you see this almost like a split between moms of older kids and moms of younger kids, and there's this weird sense of competition of who has it harder, and it's like, I think it's probably all hard. I think it's probably all hard. It's just a different hard. And you know, I'm going to very much appre my
kids are six and eight. I'm going to very much appreciate them being a little bit older and not as dependent on me for everything. And it's going to be really hard navigating their relationships and their heartaches and them driving away for the first.
Time, and like all these things.
It's just it's it's hard, and it comes with it's it's it comes with so much self doubt and so much.
There's no manual for it. You're navigating as you go through the best that you can do with what to me, like with what your experiences are to that date or what you don't want to repeat. Yeah, sort of, But we had a block party this past weekend. And I wouldn't say we're the grandparents on the block because we don't have any grandkids yet, but we're one of the older We've been here for twenty one years and the families have turned over. So there were lots of tiny
kids running around. There's an older couple, there's us, there's
another older couple. But the kid you know. So everybody was you know, thirty on up to eighty, and we were all sitting around in a circle with fire with everybody's kids or grandkids running around in the dark, plane flashlight tag and all this stuff, and everybody could relate to all of the different things that were going on right now, you know, and they were asking, well, where are your kids anyway, Like, well, one's asleep avoiding this party.
Ones in Germany, ones you know here there, you know that kind of thing. But you know, we heated the pool up to like ninety almost and had all the kids over for a pool party, and it was so much fun to have little kids. So even when you get older, you missed the little kids when you're younger. When you're younger, you're like, gosh, I wish they'd grow up. Good luck. Yeah, finding that you just have to almost I keep thinking, you just have to almost enjoy every moment.
And that didn't dawn on me though, until I dropped the first one off at college. The first one off at college and there were three younger ones. I went, oh, did I do this all? Right?
Yeah?
I had a home like a That was then I wrote the Change Guidebook and I talked about how he didn't do his sheets for the year and stuff like that. But I really had a hiccup right here, going did I do everything? Okay? Did I fail this child? Have I been a horrible mother? Am I? Okay? Am I? Oh?
Yeah yeah?
And I'm telling you do that in your book though.
Well, thank you, And that's what I wanted to bring that through in the book to talk about it, particularly in the chapters on motherhood that, like, like you said, there is no manual, there is so much pressure to be a perfect parent, to do it all the right way, and what is right is constantly changing. So oh, we're
all okay, we're all supposed to be gentle parenting. Oh no, now there's some research that gentle parenting actually has some negative consequences, and we've got to move back this way and you're trying to navigate all of that. At the end of the day, you're doing fine. You know, you're
just doing fine. And the self forgiveness, the self compassion is so important because you're never going to do it perfectly, so you just have to trust yourself to do the best with what you know and learn on your feet.
You know, Well, I think I long winded that I really would have liked to have had this book when my kids were smaller, because I would have felt like, Okay, I'm not alone in all of these different moments of insecurity and unsure with my you know, just you made up words and I just probably made some up to you know, you're just unsure of yourself, and you know, it's just it's hard and everybody's different and every family is different, and there's no one size fits all way
to parent kids or be a parent, or be married or anything. So tell me about the chip thing. Why are their potato chips on this book? And what does beyond self care potato chips mean?
Okay, so this was this actually came from my therapist. Oh.
I love my therapist.
I've been with him for three or four years now, and I went to him because we had had a family crisis and I had sought him out to get help for this family member, and then that family member declined the help. And so while I'm in contact with this therapist and now this family member is declining the help, I was like, can I come, Can I just can I take that appointment?
And he was like yeah, sure, So I.
Came and and he's gotten me through a lot, through my separation from my husband and then through our reconciliation and doing my inner child work and all like that. But there was a day where I was sitting, you know, sitting there in therapy with him, and he said, Amber, you can't get full on self care potato chips.
And I was like, say that again, and he.
Said, you know, he said, you know, you keep looking for these little these little morsels of things that are going to fill you up, things that you think will make you feel good, but they're not going to because you're not actually taking care of yourself. You know, you're putting on the veneer of taking care of yourself. You're you know, you're you're you put on makeup every day, you shower every day, you you know, go on walks, you exercise, and all like that, and that's all great.
He was like, that's it's not to minimize those things, but doing those things without going deeper, doing things that are hard, you know, learning how to do battle with your inner demons, heal your inner child, set your boundaries, communicate your needs. Those are actual. That's self care, that's the real self care. And it had rolled off of his tongue and I asked him. I was like, did you just is that? Is that something that y'all talk about in therapy spaces?
Is that a term?
And he said no, I just kind of came up with it. So as I was thinking of the concept for the book, that phrase just kept coming to my mind, and so I reached out to my therapist and I said, would you mind if I use this for the title of my book and he was like, yeah, go ahead, that would be amazing. So I initially titled it just self care potato Chips, and everyone was like, you got to put something in there in front of that so that people don't think you're advocating for the self care
potato chip. So then it became beyond self care potato chips. But the metaphor is essentially like you can keep going to the closet and pulling out potato chips, and you will eat that entire bag and you'll be done, and you'll feel bloated, and maybe you'll feel a little bit emotionally better because you just ate this food that just feels good. But you're going to be hungry again in
just less than an hour. Then you're gonna have to go feed yourself again, and you're not actually nourishing anything. It's just empty calories. And so what I talk about in the book is what nourishing self care is self care. Potato chips are fine, and they're good, but you gotta do the You got to get the casse role in there too.
The vitamins with the chips. Yeah, so what what does that mean? What did what did you put in the book that is going to teach us to actually self care? Because you know, I think people do think that, just like with a gratitude journal, people write five things they're grateful for and be done with it and walk away and things like that. But I like the I like this type of stuff on autopilot, so it becomes who
you are as a method of how you operate. You learn it and learn it and learn it and learn it, and then you are like, Okay, this is who I am, this is the I am. But it's tough to get there, isn't it, especially with the whole boundary thing and saying what you really want without making somebody else mad or feel bad or you feel bad or you know. Yeah.
And I thought it was interesting. I was watching one of your tiktoks and you you were talking about your the four four four newsletter, and you were you spoke about how there's four things for self, four things for humanity, four journal prompts, and four affirmations, and you said in the middle of that, you said, I know some of you guys say everything I talk about is just puppies and rainbows. So if you want, you can journal about something you know, negative if you want, But this is positive.
And I just was so struck by that, because I do think people want to kind of they want to vilify growth mindset and positive mindset. It seems like nobody likes a happy person in the same way that they say, like everyone everyone loves a baby and hates an old man. In some ways, when I was getting the most reach and views on my platform was when I was at
my absolute lowest. Right, People love watching someone going through a hard time, and they love you talking about going through a hard time, and they love talking about their hard times. And when you start doing the work the same the work that you're talking about in your literature and what I talk about in my book.
You start to evolve. You start to.
Realize I don't have to think that everything is puppy dogs and rainbows. I'm allowed to say this just sucks. However, yeah, there is something that is useful and good about saying Okay, yes this can suck. And also what lessons can I learn from this? You talk about the oh what do you call it? It's not it's not the gratitude reframe. It's the gratitude flip flip.
Yeah, where it's where it's not like, oh, I have to go do that. I gotta go. I have to go pick up the kids from school or whatever. It's in my book, but your frame everything is like I get.
To I get to.
Yeah. It's just it's like a little bit of mind trickery with I really kind of mean that, though, because if you stay down all the time talking about all your problems and all your everything and whoa boo is me and all this stuff, you're going to stay there. And it's really helpful to shift people to recognize all of that, go through it, talk about it, deal with it, and all those things. But to have the element of moving forward is a beautiful thing.
Yeah, And I feel like sometimes people want to label that incorrectly, label that as toxic positivity, and they don't understand that that's not what that word actually means.
But you do, you can get caught in this.
It can become difficult talking about change and growth, about spirituality, about self care because sometimes people want to say, oh, this is just all puppy dogs and rainbows. And so my book is trying really hard to bring some balance to the conversation and say, like, hey, it's we should talk about the hard stuff. And the book primarily talks about the hard stuff, but let's also remember that through all the hard stuff there are learnings, and again abuse
neglect those things. We don't have to, we don't have to try to pretend like there's a learning opportunity there. We can set those aside. But I'm talking about the just the everyday challenges and woes that we go through that are so painful, that hurts so deep. There is a way to look at those and go, how can I grow from this? How can I evolve?
What can I learn?
How can I be and do better from this? And that's not toxic, that's actually incredibly healthy, and that's what we should be doing. And so the book, the book really goes into here's the hard stuff we have to do, and here's how we sort of not just reframe it, but go a step further and try to turn it into something like a practical approach.
Now, when you talk about other people in your book, let's just say your husband for a minute, Charlie, Right, yes, did you have to say, look, I'm going to write about.
You, don't. I don't feel like that was ever a very specific conversation we had. I never came to him and was like, is it okay if I share these stories? But it was him who encouraged me to write the book. And you know, as we navigated our separation and then our reconciliation, he was the one who was like, we have this great testimony and I want you to share. He was like, you can be honest, you can talk
about the nitty gritty stuff. And we hope to one day write a book together about this, you know, about the process of what we've been through as a couple, both being in therapy and all like that. So no, I do know that he was totally on board, but there was never like a this is okay.
But because I remember when I first started writing, what a family member who shall go on name name said, what are you going to write about me? And I'm like, wow, that's presumptuous. In the number of things, I'm probably not going to number one. And second there's you know, nothing in here about you, so sorry to disappoint. But how people do that, It's like, what are you going to write about me? And then they get all worried. It's like, relax, that's onny.
I mean I was anxious because I talk about my upbringing a little bit. So I was nervous talking about my parents. Yea, which is hard, right, because there's a book that I really love and it's it's called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and it talks about in there that you can speak about your parents and ways that you wish your upbringing was different without betraying your parents. It's not betraying them to talk about how you wish
things were different. So in the book, you know, I did mention certain things about my about my upbringing, and I always tried to make sure that I get my parents are both still living, right, so I want them to feel like they can hand this to their friends and say, read this and feel proud of it, and have nothing being there that they're ashamed of. And so I but I was a little scared of a few chapters in there where I speak about them specifically.
But they've both read.
It and they were really happy and really supportive, and so that that was the only that was the only part that I was like a little bit uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got my mom and dad my books too. But yeah, it's not good.
Yeah.
My father was a stroke survivor for from twentousand and four to twenty eighteen. My mother was a primary caregiver for all of those years, and we had a we had a pretty cool childhood. Actually there are I'm in the middle of eleven kids. Oh it was a huge family.
Oh, my goodness.
Family. So but yeah, so you could see the question, now, what are you going to write about us?
Yeah, yeah, don't.
Worry, No, no, spill in the beans. It's so good. Yeah, it's funny. I have so many questions for you here from balancing marriage and motherhood, family, friendship, you know, all the things that are in the book about different aspects of your life. Is there one area in there where you're like, you know, I really wish somebody would pick this book up and read this chapter or this chapter, this section very nice, chairs squeaky, I will say, you know, talking to you by the way.
Sorry, I know it's great that I feel the same way.
Yeah. So the book has broken into several sections. There's self care in our romantic relationships, our friendships, our families so like the broader family, uh, in the workplace, in our communication, and in our mental health. And I feel like that the one that I think is definitely relatable to everyone because not everyone has had a spouse or even had a big family, or even had a job, but everyone has had a friend and everyone has had good friends and bad friends.
Yeah.
And I really love that section of the book because it leads off with this chapter called Crabs in a Bucket, and it's based on crab theory, and it's this concept that if you put a whole bunch of crabs inside of a bucket. There will be some who stay at the bottom and some who attempt to climb out to safety.
But rather than allowing some of the crabs to get out, what the other crabs will do is reach up and yank them back down, so that although some of the crabs could have gotten out and survived, they all end up crushed and perishing at the bottom of the bucket. And I lead with that chapter because I think a lot of us experience that in our friendships. We've all had those people who came along claiming to be our friends, who like maybe could have even been our frenemies, people
who pretended to kind of be on our side. And you know, everyone loves an underdog, right, Everyone loves you when you're down, like I just said, everyone loves when you're saying that you're going to write a book, or saying you're.
Going to start a business.
But when you actually do it, when you actually get your book deal, or when you actually start making money in your business or whatever it may be, you find there are some friends who suddenly aren't very supportive, who suddenly are wanting to pull you back down.
Yep.
And so that chapter speaks about crab theory and what that's like, and then I go into friendship breakups and sometimes you're being the one broken up with and sometimes you're the one doing the breakup, and some practical tools for navigating that. And then the final chapter in that section is called at the Table, and it's about getting the right You speak a lot about having the right mentors and guides, because yeah, because anything anything we do, success, happiness, spirituality,
none of that happens in a vacuum. And it's so important that you have the right people at the table. And so I go into kind of finding the right people for the table and how you need to be looking for safety, for communication, for mutual positive regard, and if you're not getting those things, then these people don't belong at your table.
I love that whole section, and I'm going to take it a step further and have you talk about this, you know, the whole chapter in there about your business, because you had a different business of a baby business before, and exactly what happened to you has happened to me twice now through owning best Ever you how many time I could write a whole book about all the crap that I've endured with owning Best Ever You. And I don't go on TikTok and talk about it or go
on Instagram and talk talk about it very much. But I'm starting to think, you know, maybe I should, because you know, I've been copied. I've been you know. I thought it had somebody come in here and help me, like actually, like oh I want to help you and do everything, and they turn around and open up the
exact same thing. I'm like, wait a minute, you just took and I feel I felt like such a like an idiot at moments, like so naive and so like like almost like heart on your sleeve, and you don't want to tough en up to be you know, scary scared of people. You know this, I'm not that. I'm not that human, and I'm still the same. People can come in and say, hey, do you want to help me, and I'll be like sure, you know kind of thing
and and and be oblivious to what's happened before. But I even had one person who I read so I quit this job in the financial services industry started Best Ever You. This is in my books and things like that, But I was into it probably a month and I got this phone call and this guy goes, yeah, so I own everything all the domains that are best, So I'm gonna be needing you to just sign over best ever you to me, best ever you dot Com to me. And I'm like, I don't know who you are. He's like, well,
I own everything best on the Internet. I'm like, I really don't give a shit. I don't care no kind of thing. I'm like, you could own everything and you know and whatever, and I don't care. I registered that to me. It's my business idea. I'm sorry, it's mine. And I just completely pissed him off. He started screaming at me, and he goes, listen, lady, you are nothing but a washed up forty year old soccer mom who's never gonna make it, never gonna do anything, and all
the things you're thinking of are never gonna happen. And then he just paused. I wish I would have said something way more intel. It's one of those moments where you I go, bag, oh, yeah, well, you know anyway, what I said was this. I said, oh, yeah, well my kids never played soccer. Just I don't know.
I think I think that was a pretty good one.
What dick, you know kind of you know, sorry I just said that, but you know, but you know, you're just like wow, and then you have a moment after that where you're like, you are like, what just happened kind of thing. But then you start this self doubt creep all that's in your head just going through your head going. I walked out, and I'm like, do I suck? Should I not be doing this? Should I go get a job? Should I should I really do a podcast?
Should I write book? You know, everything about yourself comes right into question when somebody like that, does you? Does that to you? Unless it maybe happens once or twice and you go, aha, you are a mind yuckie walker. You. So I always equip everybody now with earplugs and bubble wrap my kids. I'm like, here's the earplugs for all those kind of people, and here's the bubble rep because it's a bumpy out there. Tell me what happened, Tell us all what happened to you? Because I have a
sneaking suspicion. Have you read what I read in your book that it's pretty much kind of the same.
Yeah, it was.
It was very much the same, And it's I love your I love your bubble wrap analogy because I talk about in the book truth Trenches, which is that we're going to surround you in a trench of truth that the lies of the world have to pass through before they can get to you, and refined by the truth, they can't hurt you as much anymore. And it's exactly what you're talking about, that self doubt. You know, we all kind of carry around our own self doubt, right.
And we try to push it down. We're like, I know that.
This is this is not valid, and so you push it down, and then someone comes along and just suggests that this thing that you feel self conscious or self doubtful about could be true, and then it all comes flooding out, and so you have to have that that truth trench. But yeah, I had the exact same thing.
This was. This was a woman who had been.
A member a woman yeah okay, keep going.
Had been a member of my community for a long time, had been a fan, a supporter, and you know, she wanted some help starting a business, and I wanted.
To help her. I said sure, absolutely, Like let's.
I don't have a I can't give a lot of time, but I can I can mentor you whatever that is. And you know, looking back, kind of like you said, sometimes you feel naive or stupid. I should have asked, like, what kind of business are you starting?
What are you doing?
But I didn't do that, and so I was very shocking to find after I had given her some help, taught her how to set up a Shopify account and like all these other things, she launched a business that was in direct competition with mine, probably, which you know, I think that when you're a person who's trying to navigate the world and give people benefit of the doubt. I was like, I was like, okay, well that feels kind of bad, but also competition is good, like it's
a free market, good luck. But then, man, it just snowballed from there. You know. She started lifting copy off of my website, and I knew it because I had typos in my like on my website because I was writing all my copy back then, and she would have the same typos, which all that I kind of dealt with. But then everything really came to a head when I launched my own line of diaper bags and accessories, and
they it was it blew up. It was really successful and for some reason, this just really bothered this woman, and so she started sending her friends into my community, bad mouthing me to my customers behind the scenes. Then she started trashing me publicly, and it was just it was this really bizarre And so what I talk about in the book is called the reaching hand, right, like you reach back to bring someone else up the mountain behind you, and rather than them stepping up to where
you are, they try to yank you back down. And that was that was what I experienced then, was just somebody who I was happy for her success, but she wasn't for mine, and she came into the ring with me to compete with me. I didn't ask to compete with you, and then was mad that she wasn't winning. And so it was just a really odd time of my life that it having time though.
I mean, it's what we talk about. You know. It's like high school, you know, depending on what year you went to high school. You know, people are mean. You know, we used to be women. You know, we're in a clawing at each other to get what we want, trampling all over each other and things like that. And when you when you don't do that, it's lovely. It's like, let me help you out or be honest, you know, like I really admire what you're doing and I want to copy you. Can you help me set that up?
I would have appreciated that more than just going around and doing it in the background, do you know what I mean? Like yeah, Like, because I've had people come to me and say I want to be an author, like you, can you help me get set up? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely, and then the book comes out it's different than mine or you know whatever. But I haven't had anybody like be like, okay, let me copy,
percolate and put it out there again. But in general, most people are really sweet about it, and they just want to know how you did something or how you are doing something so that they can have a little bit of it too. But the go on mooch copy and copy and revise is an interesting creature when you come about come across them, isn't it?
It really is.
I'm like, I would love for I would love I would love for people to be inspired by me. But inspired by and just ripping straight off of is that those are two different things. Yeah, And it's not great when we do that to each other. Let's let's not do that. But you know, thankfully that's been few and far between for the most part. Have been really fortunate to just have amazing, wonderful women around me one wonderful men too. But you do meet those people every now and then.
Every once in a while, and it's it's important to talk about that because you know, we're on you know a lot of things are online based, and it's not perfectly safe being online all the time, no matter who you are, and things like that, so it's important to have these conversations. Make sure you check reference, it says, make sure you check other people. Now, when I do business with people, I definitely let things sit a little bit before I jump right in. I used to be
very like, let's do that, let's do that. I still am, but I do let things, you know, just sort of percolate a little bit before I jump in. Yeah.
Yeah, And my husband says, higher, slow, fire fast, And I've been trying to learn that.
You know, it's hard too when you need help or you've got momentum or you know, it depends. Yeah, anyway, so don't copy her book. If you're following it, it'll come out like self care for candy bars or something. It's like that, right, not okay, not okay. People, I have questions in front of me from I think they're from the publicist. Maybe I think they're from Lindsay at Ac isn't Lindsay amazing?
Oh my god, I love her. I love her.
He's so helpful. Silence. But I think one of the things that I should ask you about is how you've changed since writing the book, like what you hinted at it earlier, like, so, what version of Amber are we on compared to the version that you had. That's a really cool way of putting that too, because probably every year we're a different probably admitted to minute, maybe even.
Yeah, you know, I can't claim that a friend taught that to me. He said, oh, well, you know that was from a few ambers ago, and I was like, oh, what a genius way to click that. So I think I think the biggest difference for me is that when I was writing, I tend to intellectualize, right, as a lot of successful women do.
I'm sure, you know.
We just we intellectualize things and we believe because we've intellectualized them that we understand them. And so in writing the book, as I read it. Now I realize how aspirational the book was. That it was like I understood all of these principles at an intellectual level, but looking back, I can see how I was still really struggling to
actually apply those things in my own life. And so even I remember writing it and feeling like an impostor at the time, and I have a whole chapter called, you know, imposter syndrome feeling like an impostor because I could see the words that I was writing and then also seeing dysfunction in my own life and being like if only there was a book that like tel me how to navigate this that I happened to write, And so now where I am at also just like a
strange sort of side note is that over the last year, probably starting in February and culminating in June of this year, I've been on a really major spiritual journey, really like I got into it, just into meditation and yoga and all these things, and.
It's really brought some chill to my life.
And I think being more chill has enabled me to focus on actually internalizing these things from the book. And so now I'm in this place where I'm seeing health and function and goodness coming out of me. That is directly from the things I talk about in the book, because one of the things that I say in there very often is that self care blossoms outward. And so there is this sort of toxic self care culture, particularly in social media spaces, that is very hyper individualistic, very
me focused. It's very much, you know, going no contact with someone the moment that they upset you. It's devoid of things like conflict resolution and cooperation and all of these things that are required for us to have harmony in our relationships. And so now as I've been learning how to put these things that are in here into practice, I'm actually having harmony in my marriage, with my children
and with my friends and at work. And it's been There's still many things I'm working on, but it is really nice to see the growth that has taken place since the time I wrote the book.
Yeah. When I read the book, I'm like, this is really raw, and it's okay. I mean it needed to be that way. It screams like I'm I'm struggling and trying to figure this out kind of thing. You know, it just it does. It's just like, Okay, I went through this and this and this and this and this and here's how we navigated and things like that. You
can feel your journey that you're on for sure. So it's interesting, I said to my husband, for I'm like, I wonder what she's going to be like now, because the book was, you know, two or three years ago. I want to know who she is now. So I'm glad you just answered that, and you can you're continuing on and so forth, because it would be hard. It would be hard to be the book. I mean, the book's fabulous, but it would be hard to be there
all the time, wouldn't it. In every going to be in that book and situations and things like that and stay there without the growth?
Oh yeah, yeah, that's what The end.
Of the chapter is so nice. It's like, here's and here's some strategies.
Right, because you do, as I was saying earlier, you do sometimes find in these healing and mental health communities there can be this persevere where people are just kind I don't like the phrase circling the drain, but I can't think of a better one right now, where they're just sort of like centering on their pain, which is important and valid, right, that is an important part of the process is having your feelings validated and told that what you're going through is real and it happened and
it's okay, and it sucks, but then you've got.
To get yourself out of that.
And something that I loved about your story about your dad and the ABC's and when he got to f and oh it was it was a bad word, but I changed it to faith and that really resonated with me because I feel.
Like, when are you saying that F word?
It's when things are going really really bad, right, Like, that's when you're saying that F word.
And what do you need in that moment? Is you need faith.
And whether that's a spiritual faith in like in God or any other kind of deity, or whether it's it's faith in yourself faith in others, that's what you need in those other F word moments, you know. And then I just I love that story so much.
Yeah, he was cool. My dad was very cool like that though he was he was such an inspiration and how to survive, navigate, and be resilient. He used to say, who did I piss off to have this happen to me? Who did I piss off to have this because he was the nicest guy everything. He used to be so
down on himself, like what did I do wrong? And we've nothing, just you know, shit happens, you know, and unfortunately this has happened to you, But he may and then he would make the best of it and he would find you know, he's like, Okay, here's what I'm living for. Because he was you know, if you saw what he went through and we're there and the ice you and things like that, you'd be like, how's this guy going to get out of the ICU let alone live and then go back and ring the bell? See
his daughter? You know, my sister, younger sister married and my younger brother married, and you know, all these things that he had to live for and stuff. But yeah, that that was a moment right there. He looked at us like it was funny. He was really really, really smart, and then that abc moment he's like he was almost flabbergasted with how stupid the exercise was. You know, like, you guys think I'm this stabilitated, that I've lost my mind too? Are you kidding me? You know kind of thing.
He was mad, And so it was funny because he was mad, but this joyous list of things to survive. So I couldn't tell whether he was being facetious or accurate, you know, like teaching. He was teaching, but it was pretty funny in that moment. I'm like, what the heck
did he just he just said platypus. Really, you know, one of my books is there's an ard Vark and a platypus, you know, find your inner art work, a platypus to survive and all the letters there therefore, But thank you for saying that, because yeah, good old Daddy's always here. He's he was really cool. Okay, tell me about I have so many questions about. Okay, when you look at you, it doesn't seem like there's a darn thing that you would ever have to be worried about.
And this happens to us. Just hang on, you know what I mean. You go to the doctor and people say you look good. I've gone to the doctor before strep full on strep throat and they've been like, you look good. Oh yeah, I have strip throat. That kind of thing. Yeah, tell me about what. Okay, I'm gonna you can pass on this too. Tell me about like your childhood, Like what brought you here?
Like?
What there's the book? What has happened to you?
Like?
Tell me about you a little bit more. We know you're an author, we know you have this story, we know this, but but what brought you here? What brought you to being a doctor of psychology? What brought you into this mindset space? TikTok? All these things just navigate us to tell us who you are?
Sure so, And this is the part that can get
tricky for me to talk about. I get it, yeah, But one of the things that I feel comfortable talking about is that in my house growing up, I had one parent who was diagnosed with depression and another parent who clearly needed to be diagnosed with anxiety and refused to get that diagnosis, And so there was a lot of dysfunction in the household because my mother, who had been diagnosed with depression, had a very contentious relationship with her mental health in that at the time, you know,
there was still a lot of shame and stigma around things like depression and anxiety, and so she was constantly trying to distance herself from that, and the way that she did that was to not take her medicine to not go to therapy to you know, and she would go through times in her life where she was really devout about those things, and then she would go through times in her life where she wasn't and when she
wasn't taking good care of her mental health. There was a lot of dysfunction that would happen in our family as a result. Then you add to that my father who had anxiety, that if he had had that diagnosed, then we would all understand where his behavior was coming from. Some of the as a person diagnosed with anxiety myself, some of them neuroticism, the irritability, these are all things
that come from that can come from anxiety. But often he just seemed mad and irritable and impatient all the time. And so as a child watching my father and being like, he's so mad and I don't understand why. If there been a label for that, I was just like, oh, he's anxious. I don't think I would have internalized some
of that stuff. And so same with my mom. You know, when my mom's depression was not being treated, often, you know, I internalized what was going on with her as being my fault, my problem, my thing I needed to fix, and a question I still have in my mind was was I parentified by my parents or did I parentify myself? Like did I decide to become the parent? But I often felt like it was my obligation to take care of particularly my mom. And she was a brilliant woman,
a successful woman. I don't mean to like infantalize my mother. She's a kick ass lady.
Yeah, but I.
Felt like when it came to her mental health, she needed me to take care of her sometimes. And so I was like, when I got older and I realized I had inherited some of this that like I can be depressed, I can be anxious, I was like, then I want to understand this to the greatest degree.
And I knew better than.
To become a therapist because I was like, I think I'm messed up enough that like, I don't think I'm the person that needs to be telling people how to go live their life. The irony of that now this is my book is just now landing on me.
Yeah. That was like, I was like, that's how we learned, though, I'm telling you, we heal and learn through what we're doing, so it's all good. I got the same thing people I've had that said to me, some of hims you why you just ignore it?
Keep yeah, And so I was like, all right, well, I'm going to get a PhD in cognitive psychology. I'm going to study self regulation and emotion regulation because I if I understand these things at the at the biological level, then everything will make sense to me. My parents be behavior, my behavior, other people's behavior. And then what do you know, I got the degree and still nobody made sense. Everyone's crazy,
I'm crazy, We're all. We all act in unpredictable ways that having a degree really can't fix.
And so it was then that I was like, how interesting.
You know, the COVID happened, and I was like, I think I'm just gonna get on the internet and talk about some of this stuff. And so that's what I started doing, and you know, I built an audience trying to be I was told I had big sister energy, and that was what I was just trying to bring, like I just hey, it's your big siss just giving
you a little life lesson. And it kind of stuck, and it's been what I've really come to enjoy is just trying to bring sort of heady mental health concepts and distilling them in a way that is relatable and hopefully sometimes funny, hopefully sometimes you know, emotionally evocative, and then teach people something.
Yeah, is there anything that you've put out there? We're like, I wish I wouldn't have done that.
I'm sure.
If I'm pausing, it's because there's a lot of them.
I'm always nervous. I'm like, what are people going to say and do? Sometimes you get told too, it's like like, like mind you get trolled, kind of good, you know, like get off of here year old or whatever. People are sometimes me but you know, quick to lete button fixes that and you just you know, it's like, oh, okay, you're not my people's That's true.
I did go through a phase that I'm not very proud of, which is, you know, I had just separated
from my husband. I was very unhealed at that time, very hurt and angry and just waking up to like real feminism, which is funny because what I was doing was not real feminism at all, but like really coming to understand the role of patriarchy and white supremacy and like all these things, learning about them all at once, and what happened is I became just very angry at men, and so I spent a lot of time talking about I would always say, I'm talking about women's issues. These
are I'm talking about women's issues. But I was doing it in such a combative and nasty way that was I was a real turn off to men who really could have could have benefited from what I had to say, and also to women who were like, I have men who I love, and you're coming across so nasty. And so I do regret that time of my life. And it's why when I pitched to Psychology Today to have my own column there, I pitched the idea of compassionate feminism.
That's the name of my column. And so now I'm trying to pay for my past sins and talk about concepts that bring men into the conversation in a loving and gentle way, recognizing that men are the victims of all of these structures too.
I'd love to be interviewed for that column as the mother of four boys, Oh my god, they're all. If you ever get a chance to do that, please boote me in. Yeah, because as a mother of four boys, I can't believe what my boys have Our boys have endured and they're all straight A. One's a college athlete. Ones. You know, they've got master's degrees, they've got they're so sweet, they're so this and that. But people are very biased, yes, against boys like my college athlete. People just assume he's
a bad student. It's like, wait a minute, two master's degrees in the Presidential award and he's a straight A student, went to Georgetown.
You know.
Uh, it's very interesting. So if you ever get, if you ever get a moment to include me, I would absolutely cherish that moment. Oh that would be attack your column or anything like that, but to just be included would be lovely.
No, I would love that.
Always wanted an opportunity like that to talk about boys. Yea, there are four boys to talk about some of the things that they go through that are very different. But just people like people just assume they're bad students too. We are interesting.
We've come to a weird place in society where we look at men, and particularly white men, and we say, oh, you are the most privileged, so therefore you have no struggles. And when when those men try to talk about their struggles, we sometimes will do this thing where we're like, don't don't you dare, don't you dare?
Act like.
Right, and and I was doing a lot of that and then realizing, like patriarchy and the reason why we have to abolish these structures. And I know this isn't what we're talking about.
Here before, it's important and I'll tell you why in a minute. Just keep going.
Yeah, the reason why we have to abolish these structures is because they hurt everyone and and men are not exempt from that. And and so I mean, men are committing suicide at an alarming rate, the amount of pressure that is put on men to provide. You know, there are men who would rather go commit suicide than come home and tell their wives that they lost their job. And these are all the result of patriarchy and the harms that they do to men.
Yeah, yeah, you know it was interesting because I was reading there you touched on this in your book just slightly, and I wondered if you were going to come on here and be angry. I said that to Peter too. I'm like, I don't know her well enough yet, I've never pre interviewed, and if she goes all out against men, you know kind of thing I hope she doesn't do that. And I'm like, she looks all smiling and happy and things like that. I don't see any of her stuff,
but there's a touch of it over here. And you were talking about and then I read it and I'm like, oh, she's talking about what she went through after that, and I'm mad at like almost like mad at the world. You were in a way in certain points. So I caught onto it and I'm like, no, that's not her, but I wanted to bring it up. I'm like it made me like, go, I get that way too, you know, I get so, but I get so defensive of men.
I'm like, oh, yeah, well you try going and cleaning that up, because every time the garbage gets taken out here, it's not me doing it. There's so many things that we take men for granted for these days, and I want to be all like opposite of it, all like women doing their thing and women go, go, go, but don't leave this whole crowd out. Now. It's like no, no, no, no, you know we need to be and no, no no, It's like that's me, Yeah, we.
Need to be bringing them along. And what's crazy is and again this was when I was at my most ignorant about feminism was when I was like, exclude the men, keep them out. And it turns out that you know the most the most prolific thinkers and writers, Belle Hooks being one of them. Their whole premise was like, men are harmed by patriarchy to and we must include them.
They must be included and so and a part of my healing journey, part of reconciling my marriage and my husband going to therapy and showing me like I learned. I talk about it in the book. So many things that I attributed as being negative qualities about him. I put this negative label on his behaviors, and when he went to therapy discovering that there are these deep seated issues from his childhood that underpinned so many of these
things that I assigned a negative label to. And it was a big part of healing my relationship with men. You know, realize and as a boy mom myself, I have a son. It's very important that I did that work. And I don't think we're having that conversation enough.
Yeah, No, I don't think we are either. And I don't know that I'm totally I feel more experiential about it rather than educated about it. I don't know that I've ever taken a class in this or that to learn about it. More. You just sort of feel it, and you feel your mom paving the way with a job with eleven kids. You feel your mom, you know, doing things. But you know, I can tell you that I feel personally like I've turned like we've turning. We've
turned out four boys. They know how to cook, clean, love, you know, like I could go through ten things that they they're very self sufficient human beings with compassion towards
women and support towards women. Not I'm going to squash you like a bug well or you know, none of that going on that we've all experienced over our lifetimes in various ways, and with particular sensitivity to some of the stories I've shared with them about my experiences with men in the workplace and things that I've gone through. They know all my stories, so they, you know, and I'm in here, lone female. All the animals or girls.
Had to bring balance somewhat.
Yeah, but yeah, there's my validation that dogs are girls. But you know, you can share these stories about what's happened to you as a girl, and they're like, that's not right, you know kind of thing. So you feel like there's four more people in the world who have love and compassion towards women and are lifting them up rather than whatever whatever it is, whatever the other thing is,
they don't do that, so it's cool. Is it ever too late to start with all of these self care things that you talk about in your book?
No, I mean, of course I would love. I would love to go back and tell my thirteen year old self to start now, But no, it's never too late. And I think I think the beautiful thing about get older is you know, I'm going to be forty in January and realizing that, like, man, I'm I talk about this in the book, I'm heading into the sandwichy years. The sandwich being when you have parents who are still alive but are getting older and becoming more dependent on you,
and you also have children who still need you. And I feel like as we get older, we start to really realize, wait a minute, I can't take care of all of my people when I'm not taking care of myself and everything that I've been doing through my twenties and my thirties to try to spread myself too thin and try to help everybody and they say yes to everything and all like that. That hasn't really served me very well. And it turns out I'm not even taking care of my loved ones as well as I could
because I'm so burnout. And so I think women our age are really in a great position to begin this work now, because for once in our lives, we're starting to realize, maybe all that striving and all that self sacrifice that I've been doing, it wasn't really helping me, and maybe wasn't even helping other people. Maybe I've just been running in the in the hamster wheel, you.
Know, Yeah, that's a that's a chapter in my book, that hamster Wheel. It's impercolating the very first book I did. Yes, but there's a whole hamster wheel thing in there about that, because I totally agree with you in that it's really hard as women. Let's just talk about women for a second. It's so hard to do everything. There's so much responsibility on different aspects of your life, from just holding down your own job and career. Then children come into play.
If you're there, okay, who makes dinner? Who makes breakfast? Who makes lunch, Who makes the kids lunches? Who make who cleans? What else is there? Join in on the who? What else is there that we have to car repairs, car to keep going. Let's do the you know, there's so much, so.
Many things we have to do, the moral lessons we have to be doing, the disciplining way, like it just the list goes.
On and on. So how do you stop doing that? Like I could? I have. I've really had a hard time figuring that. My kids were like zero, two, four and six. Oh, came home from the hospital, right, I mean really, I'm not kidding, Like I can remember in that moment, four strollers, four car seats, zero two four six not really that much help because I lived in California at the time. I remember sitting there praying for a shower, and then postpartum depression kicks in and you're like,
oh boy, the first one. I got some interesting postpartum depression that lingered on for a little bit and it was like, oh, what is this? And it's called like being completely overwhelmed with every single aspect of every single aspect of your life and not having proper help, not having proper really anything. In that moment, I don't. I don't know how people do. I remember in that moment just like crying and be like, I should be the best mom in the world. This should be the best
moment in the world, and instead, this is really really tricky. Yeah, did you have that?
Of course? I still say to this day.
I looked at Charlie just the other night and I was like, I don't know how people do it with more than two kids. I don't know how they do it. And it is it's an and dare you say out loud that, Hey, I'm not enjoying this mom gig as much as I thought I was going to. Hey, I wish I could have a shower.
I remember under that boy, Oh yeah.
I remember. There was this one day. This was a big fight for me and Charlie.
I'd been at home with our son all day and at the time, my son was going to bed at four pm and waking up for the day at four am, and then was up twelve to twenty four times a night, and I was the only one getting up with him, and so I was exhausted. I was smelly, I was I hadn't eaten, I was miserable, and Charlie came home, and this was early on in our marriage. Charlie came home and he said, I said, can you please take the baby? I need to I just need to go
to the bathroom. If I'm being honest, like I just need.
To go to No. I have those moments, yeah and.
Yeah, and he said, hold on, let me go take a shower and then I'll take take the baby. And I was like I lost it. I was like I cannot believe. I cannot believe and you need no. No.
That was early on a place where I would put like a like a play pen.
You get to that point you're like, I don't know what else to do.
I got a shower, I don't know what else to do here.
Yeah, but these are the stories that like don't get told, and then you tell them and you're an ungrateful mom. Well you shouldn't have had kids if you still wanted to shower and eat and shit.
You know, like, can I leave that in?
Yeah? Of course.
You know.
It's like, oh my god, yeah yeah, and then you know, prepare the ten course meal for somebody's walking in the door from work.
Yeah yeah, wild, It's like you.
Gotta be kidding me. So I just completely related to like everything in your book. I'm like, oh my god. Yeah, so I don't know how many shades of red eye am right now, but yeah, it was. I just remember. I remember that being really really tough, and I still marvel. I'm like, how do you all do it? You know? And no amount of nanny, no, no amount of anything. Really, you know. I think I told this in my book. I tell this in all my books and my point.
You know, I was a financial service executive, right I would fly around with two small toddlers and a nanny to my doing my job around the country. Oh my gosh, oh yeah, hotel everything. And I'm like, I finally don't know if you know my whole story, but I burned my immune system out. I have lifelong life threatened, life threatening food allergies. Like my immune system completely kablueyed. And I didn't know any better, you know, I just thought, you know, this is what we do as women, you know,
we do four hundred things. So you bring it on. Okay. I guess if I'm going to work and have this job, the kids are coming too, because certainly who's going to take care of them but me? You know, kind of so finally I got divorced, got remarried, and my beautiful husband of twenty six plus years now was like, yeah, he's lovely. He's like, I have an idea. Just take a rest, you know kind of thing, and you know, you do what you want to do, but you know,
let's breathe a little bit here. You know, if you want to take a break from working so hard, just take care of the kids, or if you want to work from home or whatever. It all morphed into best ever you. I mean, I'll tell you though, I got so sick of it. When the little one came went into first grade. I was like, okay, I've super had enough of my hair on top of my head, no makeup, sweats. I'm like, oh my god, you know kind of thing. I was like, suits and heels, suits and heels, you know,
kind of makeup done, hair done. Let me get a job into first grade. I've got my financial services job VP. All this thing I went into. Four guys fighting. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. I'm serious, four grown men fighting over their family business. I'm like, oh, oh no, no, no, no, no no. So I quit on the spot and I wrote I wrote before I did, though, I wrote best ever You, best ever Me. I'm like, I'm like, oh,
there it is. It's best ever you. Because if I'm going through this and I can't be sixteen different humans at once, you know, because you know, the nannies would call me at work and I'm like, oh my god, seriously, I can't even have a job now either. Ah, you know kind of thing. And I wrote on best ever You, and I'm like, oh, there it is. There it is.
Everybody's going through the same exact thing. We're just all trying to figure out how to navigate doing six hundred things at once and be twelve people.
Yep.
And so I quit right on the spot, went home, told everybody like, what did you do? I quit my job and marched up the street and got the domain best ever You, and it's been I interviewed a lady who had a baby business at her table. It was my best friend from kindergarten doing sewing baby bibs at her kitchen table. Jealous that that jealous that all of our friends were having kids and she wasn't, and giving baby gifts since she has kids now and stuff like that.
But she was so fuming mad, and we put her on best Ever. You she you know, got her story going. She she's making six figures doing baby bibs at her kitchen table. Just an incredible business. And here it is and podcasting and books and things like that. But you know what's our message here to people like you can't do it all? You can do it all, Good luck doing it all. Do what's right for you, be author. I mean, what's the message? See how confusing that is?
Yeah? I think I think the overall message is one that has become cliche. But sometimes things only become cliche because they are so true and we need to keep hearing them. And that is that self care is not selfish,
that that you truly cannot care for. You cannot do your job right, You cannot take care of your marriage, you cannot take care of your kids and your family and your friendships and everything unless you are deeply and dearly investing in yourself, because otherwise you're going to be so burnt out that you know, in these efforts to be great at everything, you end up being good at none.
And so when you say, like, you know what, I'm going to stop trying to be great or perfect at everything, and I am going to I talk about in the article I wrote for your publications. Let good enough be good enough, so that you can take time for yourself. And that's a hard thing, particularly for women who have been conditioned to understand that we have to sometimes be ten times greater than other people just because we're women,
and so it's hard to put that perfectionism down. But I truly think when we put that aside, and when we say it isn't self for me to take care of myself, it's not selfish to say no, I am allowed to be a kind and caring person and also have limits and boundaries, and one doesn't erase the other. Yeah, I think that embracing that is how we actually end up being able to take better care of our people and the things we care about.
They end up being a really good parent that way. Yes, a little bit of self care in the mix. So I remember I used to sit here and go, Okay, we're going to clean the house, we're gonna make this elaboraten, or we're gonna take care of all the kids. We're gonna go swim and go to the park, walk the dogs. You know, like a list of like forty five things in my day. And my husband would get home because I wasn't working at this exact moment, and be like,
what do you do today? And I'm like, here's the listing, here's what I did. You know, Yeah, it's like seventy five things. He's like, oh my god, how'd you do all that? And it's like, you know, because there's a cape and a superhero logo and you know it says mom on the back of it. Yeah, and then you get tired, you do, and then you have to be careful of yourself and you have to really implement, pull back on some things, let some things go, and implement.
But yeah, yeah, it was a dreadful day when I said no to the blue gun at the Christmas party? Oh thea Did you see that on TikTok? That mom? She's like the Venmo mom. No, you got to look her up. You look her up. Yeah, she's like I wrote her a note. She wrote me back. I'm like you, I'm way older than you, but you remember you remind me of me at the time. I again, four small kids. They're like four, six, eight, and ten, and the I think either the six or eight year old classroom was like, yes,
and you two can be the room mom. I'm like, oh, hell no, I have no way. Am I being the room mom on top of having four small kids ages zero or ages six through ten. There's just no way humanly possible. They all have sports, they all have tep no, and so I'm like, and how much money do you need?
Yes?
Check, I will pay for it all day long. But then somebody signed me up for They're like, you have to come in and help, and I'm like, I don't want to, and you know, and I've done my fair share pta Don't get me wrong, I've done it. I've been there, done it enough, and I love them and I love all the moms who do that and can do ten million things at once. For me, I couldn't.
But they signed me up to do the glue gun for the T shirt Topepeg tote bags at the Christmas Carnival and I'm like, oh, man, I don't even know what a glue gun. I didn't I honestly got I'm like a glue gun, I've never used one of these. I don't know how to do this. But it was cutting the sleeves off of a T shirt and then gluing the things together to make gif kids toe bags and every toe bag I did, man, they came on glued in the second and pretty soon it's for coming.
So anyway, I'm up there with a stapler.
Oh my gosh, this time, I'm like, I'm.
So sorry I staple your tote bags.
Well, you know what, and the crazy that we're talking about this now, I'm gonna have to sign off in
just a couple of years. I know, we have to go pick up my kids from school, but we can have a whole separate conversation about how unfair, how the schools don't have any other choice, but what a terrible position it puts mothers in because it's not usually the fathers who are getting called in for pta, but there is absolutely no space for like, what do you do if you're a mom who works and you're still expected
to show up and do these things. There's this this this assumption that you don't work, and it's just like the.
Worst big time. It was. It was way prevalent back when I was having kids. Clare's anyway, it has been so much fun.
Oh my god, totally.
Totally talk about every topic known to mankind with you I hope you come back. We can do more focused shows or whatever you want to do. I'm going to end recording here in a minute. I'm just going to sign off. I'll edit this out and then I'll talk to you for a second. But anyway, I want to Amber, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Thank you.
Tell us how to find you? What are your websites? Where do you want us to go find you in social media?
Sure?
So? My website is Amber Wardell dot com and from there you can subscribe to my newsletter. I sometimes do sneak peaks and things like that, and then I am sensible underscore Amber on pretty much all social media, particularly Instagram and TikTok.
So that's where you can find me.
And then let's hold that book up one more time more time.
Yes it really This is October twenty ninth. It's available for pre order now and all the places where you can order books.
Perfect, all right, thank you for joining us, Thank you Amber for being here. Thank you for all your fun, wisdom, raw honesty and moments and safe space to share a course because that was really fun. But anyway, all right, thanks very body for listening. Take care, Thanks for bye,