When Amy Harrington rose through the ranks of Warner Brothers to become the first woman in the history of the entertainment industry to serve as vice president of post production and visual effects, she was surrounded almost exclusively by men. Her sister Nancy, back in Boston running a graphic design business and theater company, was working primarily with female clients. Two very different professional worlds, shaped by the same upbringing and eventually the same conclusion: they wanted out, and they wanted to do whatever came next together.
That decision, made in 2003, became the foundation of the Passionistas Project, an online sisterhood and women’s empowerment community that has grown from a podcast into a multi-platform ecosystem including workshops, a streaming service, anthology books, and a women’s shopping directory. The story of how they got there is a case study in what building a business with your sister can actually look like when the relationship is strong enough to hold it.
This article is for anyone who has ever seriously considered going into business with a family member, or who has been told that is a terrible idea. Amy and Nancy Harrington don’t present a fairytale. They present something more useful: a clear-eyed account of trust, conflict, structure, and what happens when two people who genuinely know each other decide to bet on that.
The Trust Problem That Started Everything
The Harrington sisters didn’t leave their entertainment careers because they were bored. They left because they were done navigating environments where the people around them couldn’t be trusted.
“What you hear about Hollywood is true,” Amy Harrington said. “It’s a very competitive environment. It’s a very self-serving environment in a lot of situations.”
She described watching colleagues she had worked alongside for years shift their priorities without warning the moment self-protection became the priority. The implied contract of corporate life, show up, do good work, get recognized, had stopped holding. Nancy, as a longtime freelancer, had her own version of the same story: she had always preferred the autonomy of running her own operation, and the idea of taking direction from someone else had long since lost its appeal.
“When it came time for us to make the move to leave that atmosphere, we really just wanted to work with the one person that we trust most in the world,” Amy said, “and that’s each other.”
That framing matters. Their decision to become sibling business partners wasn’t sentimental. It was strategic. They weren’t choosing each other because they were family. They were choosing each other because, after years of watching professional relationships buckle under pressure, they had identified the one person who had never once let them down.
The Nuts and Bolts That Keep the Partnership Running
Women talking about business in public settings sometimes skip over the structural details in favor of the emotional ones. But the Harringtons don’t flinch at the practical questions.
The Passionistas Project is structured as an LLC. Every dollar that comes in is split 50/50, without exception, regardless of who did more work on any given project. For years, the sisters used the collective “we” in all public-facing content, refusing to attribute bylines to one individual over the other.
“It’s not about who’s funnier or who’s smarter or who’s got better ideas,” Amy Harrington said. “So it’s a 50/50 partnership.”
Disagreements are rare. Amy said she could count significant disputes on one hand. When they do arise, the resolution method is simple: the person who feels most strongly about the issue carries the decision. The other relents. Not because one sister has more authority, but because preserving the relationship and the business matters more than winning any individual argument.
“The tie gets split by the person who is most passionate about their answer,” Amy said. “The person who is like, no, I cannot, then the other one relents.”
This is actually a documented conflict resolution approach: prioritizing the collective over the individual position. The Harrington sisters don’t call it anything. They just do it, and have for over two decades.
What They Built and Why Women Needed It
The Passionistas Project began as a podcast, launched at the height of the MeToo movement when the Harrington sisters decided the world needed a show that supported women. It grew into an annual women’s equality summit, and eventually into a full community platform.
The community serves women, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people, with a particular focus on those from marginalized groups: women of color, AAPI women, indigenous women, women over 50, women with disabilities, and women of different body types. Many members are solopreneurs, artists, coaches, or activists. Others are women in traditional corporate structures who simply want a space where they can be honest about how hard things actually are.
“We know so many women who are doing whatever they’re doing 100% alone,” Amy Harrington said. “And they get support from friends and family in that way that friends and family can be supportive, but not necessarily give you the tools that you need to succeed.”
The community offers both free and premium membership tiers, a women’s shopping directory featuring women-owned businesses, monthly meetups and workshops organized around business development, personal growth, and social impact, and a storytelling infrastructure that includes the podcast, anthology books, and memoir-writing support.
The question that often comes up for community builders with a broad focus is whether they needed to niche down. The Harringtons have heard it many times.
“Yes, that is definitely something we struggle with,” Nancy Harrington said. “We just had a conversation with our business coach a few weeks ago about keywords and SEO. And it’s like, okay, our keywords are women. I’m like, no, that doesn’t work.”
The Harringtons have landed on a workable answer: while the community is broad in some respects, the members tend to self-select around shared values. Most are in some form of personal or professional transformation, leaving corporate jobs, navigating an empty nest, finally pursuing a passion project that got delayed for years. Most are socially conscious, oriented toward service, and drawn to a community that is “very vulnerable, very loving, very open,” as Nancy described it. People who don’t fit that tend to recognize it quickly and move on.
What Community Looks Like Now
The Passionistas Project launched as a global, online-first community, and the Harrington sisters have always valued that reach. But what members ask for has shifted.
“I think community has changed even the last five years,” Nancy said, “and I think mostly due to COVID.”
Post-pandemic, members increasingly want in-person connection alongside the digital infrastructure. The sisters traveled to four cities last year to meet Passionistas in person. They are building an ambassador program so regional gatherings can happen even when they can’t be there.
What hasn’t changed is what people are looking for when they join. “People want authenticity,” Nancy said. “People want to be able to go someplace where they can be themselves.”
That means real conversations about layoffs, financial strain, and the gap between what people post publicly and what they are actually experiencing. The Passionistas Project aims to be the place where that gap closes, where women can say what is actually true and be met with support instead of judgment. It is, in many ways, the community Amy and Nancy Harrington set out to build because they already had a version of it in each other, and they wanted other women to have access to something like it too.
The Envy of the Room
When people meet Amy and Nancy Harrington and watch them work together, the reaction is often the same. “I really wish I had what you have,” Amy Harrington said people tell them. “I wish that I had somebody that I knew was 100% in my corner, who I could rely on, who was there with me in the good times and the bad times.”
That longing is what the Passionistas Project is built on. Two sisters who left established careers to bet on each other, not because the math was safe but because the trust was real, have spent over two decades building something for the women who don’t yet have that. The community they run is, in its own way, an externalized version of what they already knew how to do.
They know how to be sisters, Amy said. So they decided to teach other women what that feels like.
This article was inspired by an interview with Amy and Nancy Harrington and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen or https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectadulting To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Sisterhood: Interview Transcript Amy and Nancy Harrington with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | June 2026
Amy Stone [00:00:00]:
You’re listening to the Art of Imperfect Adulting. I’m your host, Amy Stone. Here I share stories from real people navigating the adventure that I call adulting. Are you ready? Me too. Let’s do this. Well, hello, friends. My guests today are Amy and Nancy Harrington. You may have heard of their community, the Passionistas. And in this episode, I’m going to talk with them about making the decision to build a business with a sibling and also choosing community as a business. So as a note, before we get too far, each episode of this show is delivered in both audio and video on YouTube. Amy and Nancy are really used to talking over and with each other, but with three women, two with a first name, Amy, I will give you a hint that you might want to watch this one on YouTube, but it’s always up to you. Amy and Nancy Harrington, welcome to the Art of Imperfect Adulting. Are you ready for a fun chat, you guys? Oh, fantastic. All right. I use the same two warm up questions in all of my conversations. Share with us what part of the
Nancy Harrington [00:01:06]:
world you guys call home?
Amy Harrington [00:01:09]:
We live in Los Angeles, California, but we are originally from Boston, Massachusetts. Well, Braintree, Massachusetts, south of Boston.
Amy Stone [00:01:17]:
Very nice. Very nice. And what is something that you guys love or enjoy about living in la?
Nancy Harrington [00:01:24]:
I love the fact that my birthday is in February and it used to get snowed out every year. Every party canceled because there was a storm. And now I can drive around with the windows open and go to the beach and have a nice lunch on my birthday.
Amy Stone [00:01:42]:
Beautiful. I love that, too. I love that, too. All right, so we’re going to start with a super easy question for you guys. Which of you is older and by how much?
Amy Harrington [00:01:53]:
I am older. By five years.
Amy Stone [00:01:55]:
All right. That’s a gap.
Amy Harrington [00:01:57]:
It’s a gap. Yeah. But we’re the babies. Of the family of five, there are three older than us.
Amy Stone [00:02:04]:
All right?
Nancy Harrington [00:02:04]:
And we always like to say we’re. We’re twins, separated by five years because we are. People always think we’re twins, and we are as close as twins. I. I honestly believe that’s beautiful.
Amy Stone [00:02:17]:
Okay, so your other siblings, all brothers. Brothers and sisters. Tell me more.
Amy Harrington [00:02:22]:
We have two older sisters and an older brother, so the brother’s right in the middle. There are five of us altogether. We are all extremely close.
Amy Stone [00:02:31]:
Beautiful. Beautiful. All right, so today you guys work together in business, and we’re going to talk about that more in a minute, but I want to start by rewinding the clock and asking you guys what you did for careers professionally before you guys formed the Passionistas.
Nancy Harrington [00:02:48]:
So we were both in the entertainment world. Nancy was back in Boston. She had her own graphic design business and theater company. I moved out to LA right after college and got right into film and television. So I worked on a TV show called Matlock, the original Matlock. And then I rose up the ranks to become vice president of post production and visual effects for Warner Brothers, the first woman in the history of the entertainment industry to hold that job, and worked on movies like the Harry Potters and the Matrixes. I finally convinced Nancy to come out and live in la, and she started doing Academy Award campaign ads for Miramax. So we were both. We both had great careers in entertainment, but we finally decided that we wanted to leave and do something together that is.
Amy Stone [00:03:40]:
All right, so we’re going to talk about that. How long ago was that that you guys made that decision?
Amy Harrington [00:03:47]:
We started working together in 2003.
Amy Stone [00:03:52]:
Okay, 2003. All right. Very good.
Amy Harrington [00:03:56]:
Very, very long and winding road.
Amy Stone [00:03:58]:
So you guys said. You guys described it. You said you’re very close and that you’re like twins that are separated by five years. I would love to take some time and talk about some of the other things that you guys have done in the past, like, five years. You were. Were you ever in the same school together, on the same sports teams? Did you do lemonade Stands together? Like, tell me about some of the things you did before this.
Amy Harrington [00:04:24]:
Yeah. The family folklore is that as a child, at 4 years old, I ordered Amy, I requested to have my mother to have a baby.
Nancy Harrington [00:04:33]:
All right.
Amy Harrington [00:04:34]:
So that my mother would not be lonely when I went away to kindergarten. And several months later, Amy was born. So you do the math. I don’t know. It’s just folklore, but. And we have literally been best friends ever since. So we did go to the same school together because we went to a Catholic school, grades one through eight. So when I was in fourth grade, Amy started first grade. So we were in school together for four years. It was a very tiny school, and there were very little sports, so we were not on teams together.
Nancy Harrington [00:05:11]:
And we’re very uncoordinated, and we’re very.
Amy Harrington [00:05:14]:
We didn’t really do sports. That’s a whole other podcast to hear our sports adventures. But we. We just were best friends, and we were together all the time. We didn’t have a lot of other kids in our neighborhood. So after school, we played together. We board games, backgammon, cribbage. All summer long, we swam in the pool together. Um, you name it, we did It. I don’t think we ever did a lemonade stand. I don’t think that.
Nancy Harrington [00:05:39]:
No.
Amy Harrington [00:05:40]:
Yeah, we didn’t have that kind of movie.
Nancy Harrington [00:05:41]:
We watched a lot of tv. That’s really what we did. We watched a lot of TV together.
Amy Harrington [00:05:46]:
Yeah.
Nancy Harrington [00:05:46]:
There.
Amy Stone [00:05:47]:
So now I. I did not. I was not going to ask the question because it would have been maybe crossing some lines, but when you said you grew up outside of Boston, you said you had five. You were one of five kids.
Nancy Harrington [00:05:57]:
I was like, oh, I do wonder
Amy Stone [00:05:59]:
if this is a Catholic family. But. But it was just like I grew up in a Catholic family also. So, like, I was like. I was like, o, that’s a lot of this. That sounds familiar. All right, very good. So you guys say that you founded the Passionistas Project out of a deep desire to empower women around the world. And so the question I have about that is share with us a little bit about what was going on in your own lives. Like, what experiences were you having or had you had that made you feel that this was something that the world needed?
Nancy Harrington [00:06:34]:
Yeah, well, I mean, I came from the background, even though I was in the film and television industry. I was a network, you know, I was a studio executive. So I had come from a world where I was one of the only women, if not the only woman in the room all the time. So I grew up in a very patriarchal business structure and didn’t really work with women very much. I had women that worked that I hired because I always hired women. But when I went out of my office, I was surrounded by men. So. And that had a huge impact on me that maybe I still am working through all these years later. Things come up and I’m like, oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t realize that bothered me. And Nancy had always been freelance, and Nancy predominantly worked with female clients her whole life. So we came to it from very different experiences in that regard. The reason we started it is because we had a company called Pop Culture Passionistas, which is still our main overlying company, but we were doing pop culture content and always from a really positive perspective. We were doing long term interviews for the Television Academy and then also interviews for our own website. And we had wanted to do a podcast for a while, but we didn’t really know. We didn’t really want to do a pop culture podcast. We didn’t know what to do. And it was the height of the MeToo movement when we woke up one night and thought, we need to do a podcast for women. That Supports women. So it started as a podcast that grew into an annual women’s equality summit and then ultimately became the community. So we really, we really were just trying to figure out ways to promote women to share stories of women’s empowerment. And through that, we just met so many incredible women. We were constantly looking for ways that we could support them in doing what they were doing.
Amy Stone [00:08:46]:
Very nice. Very nice. Raising the voices specific to pop culture, Hollywood stories. Raising the voices of women is something that is becoming more of a talked about thing. Reese Witherspoon and her studio, that’s a, I think that’s, I would say that that’s one of the more well known celebrity examples of somebody coming out and doing that.
Amy Harrington [00:09:12]:
Yeah, for sure.
Nancy Harrington [00:09:13]:
And Geena Davis.
Amy Harrington [00:09:15]:
Davis. Shonda Rhimes.
Amy Stone [00:09:17]:
Shonda Rhimes, sure. Yeah, yeah. So those are. And I mean those are the celebrity examples. And so today, I mean, you from the land of Hollywood. But would you describe what you’re doing now as an indie podcast, an indie show?
Amy Harrington [00:09:29]:
Oh, absolutely. We really, we really, every once in a while we have a celebrity or a big name on the show or interview in one of our summits. But for the most part, our real focus is shining the light on women who don’t get the spotlight. So as much as we admire all those women in the industry that are raising the voices, I mean, that’s really important because it has to start from the top. They don’t talk to the average everyday woman. So that’s the hole we’re trying to fill. We’re really trying to put the spotlight on those women who don’t get their voices lifted up, don’t get to speak for themselves.
Amy Stone [00:10:16]:
So, yeah, this is something I feel and I resonate with and I talk about as much as I can, but I’m going to throw it back to you and give you a chance to talk about it a little more. Because for people who are not thinking about that all day long every day, and who may not realize it because they grew up in a system where this wasn’t happening, you don’t see what you’re used to. Normal is a moving target. And so talk a little bit more about why you are committed to that and why it’s important to uplift and shine a light on regular women and their stories.
Nancy Harrington [00:10:55]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, because we don’t get the opportunity enough. Right. In so many ways. And I should say that the Passionistas project really makes it a point to focus on women from marginalized communities. And so that can be women of color or AAPI women, indigenous women, but it’s also women over 50 and women with disabilities and women of different body types. The women who are targeted in ways that may not seem as obvious or may not be as talked about as, you know, as you would like to think. So we, you know, we also live in a world where women get 2% of the venture capital funding for their businesses, and women of color get even less than that. So, yeah, we’ve, you know, we always like to joke we’ve come a long way, baby, but thanks, Big Tobacco, you know, but we’ve got so far to go, and especially in times like this where there’s, you know, people are struggling with the economy and small businesses are trying to keep their head above water. A lot of the women in our community are entrepreneurs or they have 501 C3s, and they’re the first women to really get hit with these kinds of, you know, financial impacts. And then there’s, of course, all other kinds of women’s equality issues that we could go on about for days and days and days. But, you know, for us, the. For us, one of the driving factors is people always say to Nancy and to me, when they meet us and they know what we do and they see us interacting, I really wish I had what you have. I wish that I had somebody that I knew was 100% in my corner, who I could rely on, who was there with me in the good times and the bad times. And we know so many women who are doing whatever they’re doing 100% alone. And they get support from friends and family in that way that friends and family can be supportive, but not necessarily give you the tools that you need to succeed in whatever way success means to you. And so we thought, well, we can give that to women. We know how to be sisters. And so it’s really not just about business networking. It’s not just about opportunities for financial growth. It’s really about feeling less alone and knowing that there are other women who get what you’re going through and. And who are there to support you every step of the way.
Amy Stone [00:13:44]:
All right, I love that. I, too, try and focus on telling stories from people who lived experience, people who are not already blessed with the celebrity limelight just because, like you said, it’s a story that’s not often told or not told as much as it is, but it’s also a better match for what other real people are doing. So, like, back in the 90s, I’m a runner by hobby and runner’s Magazine, which I don’t even know if that’s still out, but Rodale used to publish Runner’s Magazine, and they had a section that was like, they’re just like us. And they would do celebrities running. And it was like, well, not really. Okay. Like, I mean, there’s a little bit of a difference between the schedules we keep and what we’re able to do. I mean, yes, we both put on shoes, but not really. So, anyway. All right, so I want to talk to you about. You guys are partners and sisters, and so, on the one hand, right, Businesses with co founders are statistically much more likely to be successful. It’s a statistic so significant in business that the folks at Y Combinator years and years ago came forward and said, we really only want to bring in people to our accelerator that have co founders. So it’s really well known. But on the other hand, business partnerships can be tricky. And going into business with family members is so often a tricky thing that it is a trope in situation comedies. Right. It’s seen in scripts. Like, it’s a punchline. Right. So take me back. You guys are very, very close, and you have a very close family, which, you know, maybe that lends itself to this. But why did you guys think that it was a good idea for you to go into business as siblings?
Amy Harrington [00:15:26]:
Yeah. You know, I think Amy especially was at a point in her life where she was distrustful of people working with her. I was in a situation where some of my best friends were in the business I was working with, but also, I did not trust several of the people I was working with. And so when it came time for us to make the move to leave that atmosphere, we really just wanted to work with the one person that we trust most in the world, and that’s each other, literally. Like, I don’t. I love. I love my husband. I know Amy loves her fiance. I trust them impeccably, But I know 100%, no matter what, Amy is there. Like, I’ve never been alone a day in my life. Well, once I was five, once Amy was born. But we just are there for each other all the time, and I wanted that. And, you know, you spend so much of your life working, especially as an entrepreneur. Like, I don’t want to be spending that time with people I don’t like and I don’t trust. So Amy and I don’t have as much fun with anyone else on the planet as I do with Amy. So, you know, we just really wanted to work together. And, you know, we, we joke that we’re twins, separated at birth, but we also joke that we share a brain. Like we literally, you know, you hear all the, oh, she completes my sentences and all that. But it’s true. We have a, we have a like language that is unspoken, that we understand each other. And I, I can’t think of anybody better to work with.
Amy Stone [00:17:01]:
That’s a very, very nice answer. I’m going to double down on that and ask you because you said that you were both coming out of situations where there were trust issues with the people that you were working. Talk a little bit more about what that felt like and what that means because that’s a word that probably means different things to different people.
Amy Harrington [00:17:18]:
Yeah, yeah.
Nancy Harrington [00:17:19]:
I mean what you hear about Hollywood is true. It’s a very competitive environment. It’s a very self serving environment in a lot of situations. So you don’t really feel like people have your back much and you don’t even the people that you know where you work with for years, if things shift and they need to protect themselves, they’re going to protect themselves before they worry about how that’s going to impact you. So I went through a situation where it was clear that like people that I had pretty much trusted for years, I felt like, oh, okay, I’m not the priority in this situation. I’m gonna have to roll with a new kind of structure that didn’t work for me. And I had, at that point I had been getting, things were getting a little redundant work wise because we were making all these sequels. So even though I was on the cutting edge doing visual effects, it became a little bit repetitive on like how do you make a certain character fly or how do you make water? It’s like, well, we’ve done that before and this is how we’re going to do it again. So I was kind of getting bored with the innovation even though it’s obviously continued to be a very innovative industry. But it was really the politics that really made me want to leave. And Nancy just liked being a freelancer. Nancy liked having her own company. She is an entrepreneur at heart. So even though she was in a pretty good situation, it was like, yeah, I don’t want to have a boss. So we both really just knew that it was time to do something for ourselves. And we did end up working for other people after that. And we had another business partner at one point. But at the core of it it was always just about how are we got to do this together? And it’s been beautiful. We are the Luckiest people on the planet.
Amy Stone [00:19:35]:
So then what I’m hearing is, and I’ve heard this come up in other decisions, in other conversations, I’m sorry, where people talk about they are working for somebody in a corporate setting and the sense of security and stability no longer is as present. It’s sort of an illusion that the your job is guaranteed or your promotion is there or the recognition for showing up. What do we call it? The implied contract. Like if you show up and do a good job, you will be praised and you will be promoted. And many people sometimes realize that, oh, that doesn’t always happen. It’s a premise or a promise that doesn’t always appear. Okay, so then you guys seem pretty sure about it. I’m curious whether or not in your social circles, in your extended family, did anybody around raise any concerns like, well, I don’t know, every once in a while this doesn’t work out. When brothers and sisters and fathers and sons and mothers and daughters go into
Amy Harrington [00:20:33]:
business together, there were some concerns. First of all, I should say our father was an entrepreneur and business owner. So our entire lives we were raised by an entrepreneur. So it was a more natural thing for us. It wasn’t that unusual. And our parents were very, very special, supportive, and really encouraged us to follow our dreams. So other than the three years that I worked at the ad agency when I first moved to la, I’ve always been self employed. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I’ve always had my own business. So when it came time for Amy to cut the cord from the corporate world, it was a lot harder for her. But I told her my mantra. My mantra, which is the money always comes when you need it most. And it does. I think the 23 years we’ve been working together, I think she has also found that to be true. So. But there were, there were people in our universe that were unsure if we were making the right choice, walking away from, you know, pretty good money. And I think the people that didn’t know our relationship as well as other people were like, you’re gonna work with your sister. Okay. But I think those that knew us well knew that it was the perfect partnership.
Amy Stone [00:21:57]:
All right, very cool, very cool. All right, so I’m going to ask a very pragmatic question and you can tell me to buzz off if you don’t want to. But sometimes when people, when women come together to talk about business on things like podcasts and networking events, we talk about things like love and light and energy and divine feminine essence and all kinds of that which are lovely, but we sometimes skip over the very important components of actual nuts and bolts. You guys are sisters, but you are also in business. You have a company, you have corporate governance type things. What kind of things do you have in place to protect both of you and each of you and the business and your families as the business grows? If someday there’s something that happens to one of you or the other, or in the event that you decide to implement an exit strategy, what kind of stuff do you guys have in place for that?
Nancy Harrington [00:22:46]:
Yeah, we kind of have the Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert handshake situation going here. I think that Nancy and I, we obviously do have an llc and that is our kind of corporate agreement that we have with each other. We know that we have each other’s back and our significant others know that we have each other’s back. So if anything were to happen to either one of us, that the other would be protected in that way. But we honestly, we split everything 50, 50. If a penny comes in, even if it’s like, well, I did a little bit more on that, or Nancy did a little bit more on that, everything is split 50, 50. There’s never a question of anybody getting more money. In fact, for, for years, we do it a little less now, but we still do it to some degree. We speak in the royal we
Amy Harrington [00:23:43]:
when
Nancy Harrington [00:23:43]:
we are doing a front facing project. So, you know, we used to write for a website and we would say we wrote this. And people would be like, well, which one of you wrote that? That was really funny. And we would say we wrote this. It’s not about who’s funnier or who’s smarter or who’s got better ideas. So it’s a 50, 50 partnership. And anything that happens will always, you know, the other 50% will go to the other person. And any income that comes in or, you know, if we ever were to sell it and make those billions of dollars selling the Passionistas project, then we’d split it halfway.
Amy Stone [00:24:23]:
All right, very good, Very good. All right. So if there is a business decision that comes up and you guys don’t agree who breaks the tie,
Amy Harrington [00:24:34]:
it very, very, very rarely happens, I have to say. Like, we, like we say we share a brain. I, I can probably count in my hand the number of times that there’s been a significant disagreement. And I’m kind of guessing because I can’t think of a specific episode right now, but genuinely, the tie gets split by the person who is most passionate about their answer. The person who Is like, no, I, I cannot decision. Then the other one relents. But like I said, it really hardly ever happens.
Amy Stone [00:25:12]:
All right, that’s really wonderful. And the like. So the conflict management strategy that, that if, like, you wanted, like, you know, words for it, is that you’re putting the, the relationship and the company ahead of the individual opinion. So then you have the. It’s a technique. It’s hard to, it’s hard to teach people how to do it. But it’s the idea of saying, all right, I hear that that’s in a relationship. I hear that’s really important to you and I will, you know, out of interest in like the family, the business, whatever, let’s go with that.
Amy Harrington [00:25:42]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Amy Stone [00:25:43]:
Yeah. So very cool. For people who are listening, who are like, that’s not real. There is an actual, like, method to. It doesn’t always work. I’m not going to say that it always works.
Amy Harrington [00:25:53]:
We don’t know the method, but subconsciously that’s just what we do. That’s how we’ve always lived our lives. So.
Amy Stone [00:25:59]:
And my theory for how people come up with these conflict relay solution things is they look at people who do it well and then they write it down. I don’t think they go back to an empty room and they’re like, what do I think would work? I think that like the Gottmans and people who do stuff like that, I think they looked at families and couples and they were like, oh, look, that works. Let’s document it and give it a name. You know, I don’t know that. I can’t prove it. I have no data. But that’s. I don’t imagine. I mean, how weird would it be if somebody was like, let’s make a conflict strategy without actually looking at any people? I mean, I suppose people could honestly, things. People do weird things. Okay, very good. Thank you for going down that pragmatic question line for me. All right, so very good. So now let’s talk about, specifically about the Passionistas. The Passionistas Project. What is it and who is it for?
Nancy Harrington [00:26:45]:
Yeah, so the, the main focus of it is the community. So we have an online sisterhood called the Passionistas Project. Sisterhood. It’s for women and gender non conforming, non binary people. And they tend to be people who are solopreneurs or coaches or thought leaders or artists or activists. They’re people that are out there doing it on their own. They’re not necessarily living the traditional life. Although I will say we actually do have a segment of Our, our community, which are women in business and in traditional structures who feel like they have to go into the office and be really buttoned up, but want to be able to go someplace and say like, oh my God, this is really hard. I need support. I just need like minded people who get like, everything’s not perfect all the time and I want a space where I can just be myself. So it’s a community that is, there’s a free membership. There’s also a premium level in the free membership. You can connect with other women. You can share about your business or project or your passions. You can post things in our calendar events that you’re having or workshops that are starting so that you can share that with other people who might be interested in that. We have a women’s shopping directory that’s all women owned businesses and services. So we’re encouraging to this micro economy of women buying from women rather than going to big box stores, but actually coming to the Passionistas project and shopping from women owned businesses. And then we have, every month we have meetups so you can connect with other women. We have workshops which are educational opportunities in all three pillars, business development, personal growth and social impact. And then for our premium members, we also have Passionistas tv which is our online streaming women’s empowerment service. We have our Passionistas podcast network which is all women hosted podcasts. And then we have a group of women who we call our power Passionistas who are our resident experts. And they’re really the women who have the Passionistas TV shows. They lead the workshops, they host weekly co working sessions and monthly coaching sessions for members. And so it’s really, it’s not the type of community where there’s a guru and everybody does what that person says. It’s a circle of women learning from each other, sharing their skills and supporting each other. And it’s, you know, even this weekend we had someone post in the Sisterhood about how life transforming it has been. She got an opportunity to speak in an event and couldn’t afford to go. And it’s a really high profile event. It’s like the NAACP but for the Latina, Latin Latinx community. And she wasn’t going to be able to do it. And another member reached out to her and said, I will loan you the money so you can get an airplane ticket. You cannot turn this down. But we have women who are just collaborating and making friendships like, oh, I moved to Colorado and I don’t know anybody here. Oh my God, I live in that town, let’s have coffee. And so it’s just a beautiful space. And then it’s also in support of that because it’s really about storytelling and letting women tell their stories. We also have the podcast, but we also do anthology books with chapters written by women. And then we help women write their memoirs and their self help books. So we have a writing process for all of that where we use our interview skills to help draw out the stories so that no one ever has to stare at a blank page and think, I’m not a writer. And we help women tell their stories in that way as well.
Amy Stone [00:30:55]:
All right, very nice. So the through line of the community, the Passionistas project, is women. All right, so. And when you guys came up with this idea, I mean, I don’t know if we were having the niche wars in 2003, but did people come to you and say. And I say this because people come to me and say this. They’re like, you need to tighten this down. You need to pick a smaller group of people to talk to.
Amy Harrington [00:31:24]:
Yes, that is definitely, definitely something we struggle with. We just had a conversation with our business coach a few weeks ago about keywords and SEO. And it’s like, okay, our keywords are women. I’m like, no, that doesn’t work. Yes. Amy and I are never at a lack of ideas, and people are always trying to rein us in. I would say that we have narrowed in the focus of our community based on a few things. Like Amy was saying, we definitely focus on women in marginalized communities, women whose voices don’t tend to be heard in other places. I do think we have narrowed the focus a bit, and I think it’s a very specific kind of community. It’s very vulnerable, it’s very loving, it’s very open. And I think people, when, once they get there, they realize, this is exactly the place I need to be, or they think, I don’t get it, this isn’t for me. So I think they weed themselves out too. But it does make marketing next to impossible.
Nancy Harrington [00:32:35]:
I have to say, I was just
Amy Stone [00:32:37]:
curious, because I get that a lot people like people like, but who? And I’m like, no, but it’s general. It’s broad. And they’re like, no, but you need to choose. And I’m like, I. Maybe someday, if I can just add to that.
Nancy Harrington [00:32:50]:
We also really focus on women who are in moments of transformation in their life and who are. Who are. A lot of them are. Either they’re leaving corporate jobs or they’re empty nesters or they just have been doing something they don’t like for a long time and they’re finally following that passion project. And so they’re looking for other women to support them in doing that. So transformation is a big, big part of the community. And everybody, I would say the majority, not everybody, but a large majority of the women are really socially conscious. And even if that issue is women’s rights or something, you know, related to a 501C3 that they’ve started, the women tend to be women who want to give back in some way. Even if they’re entrepreneurs, the majority of them have started a business that is of service, in service to other people. So there’s a really beautiful socially conscious component to the personality of a passionista that I think is very beautiful and unique.
Amy Stone [00:34:01]:
So I have to ask because it’s 2026 and it’s a hot. And I decided about a year ago, instead of assuming or letting people guess about this answer, to always ask, is there a faith based element or is it a secular program?
Amy Harrington [00:34:15]:
Amy and I are fairly secular people. We have certain beliefs, we stick to them. But our community is made up from very, very diverse group of women. We have women that are very, very, very religious and spiritual and we have others that aren’t. And so it’s really, it’s not one or the other, it’s both. And everybody is very respectful of one another. And you know, there are, there are women who mention God and Jesus in almost every post they make. And if you’re the kind of woman that doesn’t gravitate towards that, just skip by it and you know, and don’t and don’t interact with that content. But we encourage everyone to again, follow their passions and be their authentic selves, whatever that is, and to be supportive of everyone and listen to everyone’s point of view so that you can learn.
Amy Stone [00:35:13]:
That’s a great way to say it. So I would say so secular, it’s like everybody can show up and then if it’s non secular or if it’s got an element of it, that it’s like a requirement that it’s the other way. So I appreciate you answering the question. I just, I feel like these days in conversations and in forward facing marketing materials, sometimes it’s hard to tell where people are. And so about, I just started telling, I started asking people, I was like, let’s just be really clear, who do you want? Because it can go either way, right? It’s like if you want a faith based group, then you know, that that’s the ones you want. All right, so very good. Okay. So that is really good. So I’m going to ask you. And Amy stepped away for a second, but she’ll come back and she’ll add to this when she comes back. As folks who are doing the work of building a community. And I was not alive 100 years ago, but if I had been, I think that community would have maybe looked a little bit differently than it does today. I feel like community looks different than it did 10 or 15 years ago. And so I wanted to ask you guys, what are you seeing in what you’re building and what people are asking for in community? Because you guys are all online. So I’m curious what people are asking for and what you’re seeing as you’re building that people are looking for.
Amy Harrington [00:36:40]:
Yeah, well, what’s interesting, I think community has changed even the last five years, and I think mostly due to Covid. I think that when we started, this community was global, and it was, you know, we keep it online because we have a global community and people connect from all over the world. And we love that. We love that aspect of it. People are asking for more in person stuff. And I think part of that is the isolation from two or three years of, you know, being at home. So we are. We do. Amy and I have traveled around the country. Last year, we went to four different cities and we met different groups of pessinistas in person, which was amazing. And we have yet to do that in Los Angeles. So that is our vow for this year, is to do it here in Los Angeles and start having more in person groups. We’ve had women in the community offer to be ambassadors so we can start having in person events around the country, even if we can’t be there, that these women will be our ambassadors. But I think the main thing about our online community is people want authenticity. People want to be able to go someplace where they can be themselves, where they can say, I just got laid off from my job. I’m desperate. I really need help. I can’t pay my rent. You know, we have really, really authentic conversations in our community where women just lay it all out there and people come to their support and their aid, and we help each other. And. And I think that’s what the women in our community are looking for, is the place where they can be their authentic selves, not be judged, not be trolled, and really just feel supported and lifted up.
Amy Stone [00:38:36]:
That’s. I mean, that’s an incredible thing to be able to offer. And I would be definitely one of those people who is. I love the advantages of online and the flexibility of global communities. And I also treasure in person connection. But I’m really snarky about it. Like, I’m not always willing to drive. Sometimes I would be more willing to fly to Los Angeles than I would be to drive across town on a Thursday afternoon. It’s like a really weird thing. It’s like online or it has to be worth it for me to go. I can’t quite, I don’t quite have the perfect words to describe it, but it’s like a. You know, I think that a lot of people are feeling that, that it’s like, I will go if it’s great, if it’s worth it for me to be there.
Amy Harrington [00:39:18]:
Yeah. And I think, and I think part of the reason we’ve been reluctant to have the LA thing is for that reason it’s a very difficult town to have in person events at because there is constantly a million things going on. So to stand out in the crowd and to make sure you’re presenting something that is so unique to people that they’ll make the drive across town is difficult. Plus, Amy and I are introverts. So I think part of it, I think part of it is like, oh, do we really want to have an event in person? You know, I think there’s a reluctance there on our own part and we’re trying to get ourselves to get out of our comfort zone and do it. But yeah, we do really cherish the online community the most.
Amy Stone [00:40:04]:
People who are regular, long time watchers and listeners of my show hear me say this all the time. I am an extrovert. Which I learned during lockdown. If you had talked to me in like 2018, I would have been like, ah, I’m an introvert because I do creative projects. And so I’m happy to work by myself. And then in lockdown, I learned I was like, oh, no, oh no, no. Where did the people go? Where are the people? What’s happened? And if I do zoom meetings all day long, if everybody is gone, if I go out for like a walk in the afternoon, I would talk to strangers on the street. I’ll talk to like inanimate objects. I’m like, hey, mailbox, how you doing? How is your day? So I like, it was a weird discovery of mine. I was like, I was wrong about myself. Look at that. All right, so very good. So in a second we’re going to do the final questions. I want to give you a Chance to just tell people who are looking for the Passionistas, we’re going to give them a link for the special offer. But when people are listening to this, hearing it, where do you want them to go to find you?
Amy Harrington [00:41:07]:
The easiest place to go is the passionistasproject.com Go to our website, all of our socials are there. Link to the sisterhood. Everything you need.
Amy Stone [00:41:16]:
Very good. All right, so you have a special offer for the audience, which is a free guided journal called the power within 30 days to uncover your story. The value of the product is $27. And there is a link to be able to claim that that link is in the audio show notes on whatever platform you’re listening to. It’s in the YouTube show description. And the easiest way to get the links is always, always, always to be a subscriber to the imperfect adulting email community. Because then it’s in your email and you just click on it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I want to thank you, Amy and Nancy, for that generous, generous offer. Are you ready to wrap this up with my final three questions?
Amy Harrington [00:41:52]:
Absolutely.
Amy Stone [00:41:53]:
Sometimes people get nervous, but these are not nervous. They’re very, very silly. Okay. You know, I write these before I talk to people. I’m interested to see what you say about this first one. Name one thing that the two of you fought about when you were kids, like younger than 10 years old.
Amy Harrington [00:42:09]:
There’s gotta be something, you guys. I don’t remember what the fight was, but I remember we did the Brady Bunch line down the middle of the room, and we couldn’t cross to the other person’s room. But our room was set up in a way that the door was on one side. So we had this really convoluted path that we masked out with my masking tape. But I don’t remember what the fight was. I would say probably our biggest fights were like, you know, we. We kept. We would play backgammon for hours on end and get frustrated when the other one won or something. But we really very rarely fought. Our only. Our only fights as. As adults have been when we’re traveling and we’re hangry as.
Amy Stone [00:42:44]:
As it was. Listen, if you’re not fighting over backgammon, you’re not doing it right because it’s like there’s like. It’s like there’s not really. It’s like. It feels like there’s skill, but it’s not really skill. It’s so much chance. So it’s like, you know, it’s one of Those things. One of those things. All right, what is the longest amount of time that the two of you have gone without talking or texting?
Nancy Harrington [00:43:06]:
Oh, man. I don’t know. I’m sure there was a period pre cell phone free Internet when I lived in California and you lived in Boston. And when. When we lived far apart like that, we would talk every Sunday, so maybe a week.
Amy Stone [00:43:28]:
Okay. Yeah.
Nancy Harrington [00:43:29]:
But I can’t imagine a time where it was more than a week, and now it’s literally every day. Like, if I don’t hear from her in some form of communication, every day, I’m like. And even past a certain hour in the morning, I’m like, oh, my God, what happened? Where is Nancy? Is she okay? Which is. Some might call it codependent. We just like to think of it as really, really close. But, yeah, we talk constantly.
Amy Stone [00:43:54]:
No, it’s kind of like, here. It’s kind of. I don’t know if you guys have kids, but there’s like. It’s like when the kids are small and the house gets silent, you’re like, oh, wait, wait a second. Something is. This is not a good sign. Like, what destruction is happening. And so I think. I think it’s that we’ll be favorable and avoid the codependent title for today. All right, third and final. Share with us your favorite story. So each of you get to answer your favorite store right now for a little bit of retail therapy. It can be an online store. It doesn’t have to be so any. It can be brick and mortar or online, but someplace that you enjoy going to browse and shop.
Amy Harrington [00:44:34]:
I was just at the Century City Mall yesterday with my friend. My dear friend Mark, who’s a fashionista, not a Pat. He’s not a passionista because he’s male, but he’s a fashionista. And we were at Zara and I actually, I love the clothing in Zara, and I didn’t buy anything, but I thought to my. I made a mental note, like, I’m gonna go online and see how much that jacket was.
Amy Stone [00:44:57]:
That’s an inspirational story. Love that.
Amy Harrington [00:45:01]:
Yeah, I would say that one.
Nancy Harrington [00:45:03]:
I would say two things. One is also Mark, Nancy’s friend Mark has been selling a lot of his old clothes, and he. I have a rack in my garage of the jackets and stuff that we’re helping him sell, and he’s incredibly generous, and he’s given us a lot of stuff for free. But I do find myself every once in a while poking through the Markwood boutique and going, like, well, if no One buys that one, so that’s one of my favorite places. And the other is going to sound self serving and it’s really not. But it’s the Passionista’s project shopping directory because I just love to see the amazing stuff the women are creating and the services they’re offering. But there’s lots of just like cool jewelry and accessories and clothes and food. I’m obsessed with like cinnamon buns and things like that. So food and fun stuff like that. So those are my two go to places right now.
Amy Stone [00:46:00]:
No, it sounds like it’s like a, you know, an online market of sorts, almost like a farmer’s market or an artist’s market. It just instead of being down the street in a parking lot is on your website. So I think that’s a great answer even though you run it. So I thank you for sharing it. That’s it. Amy and Nancy Harrington, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today on the show.
Nancy Harrington [00:46:22]:
Thank you so much for having us.
Nancy Harrington [00:46:26]:
Thank you for joining me today.
Amy Stone [00:46:28]:
I hope you enjoyed the show.
Nancy Harrington [00:46:30]:
Before I go, I want to encourage you to become a better, bigger part of the conversation. Please subscribe wherever you’re listening or watching the show. That helps my stats. A request from the bottom of my indie creator heart is to please tell your friends about the show. That is the real way new people discover it.
Amy Stone [00:46:49]:
If you feel motivated, I would love
Nancy Harrington [00:46:51]:
it if you rated the show or wrote a review on whatever platform you are using. Please be sure to head over to ImperfectAdulting.com and sign up for the email community. I call this the Village. You’ll get some free stuff right away and you’ll begin to get the weekly emails that I send. This includes the links for special offers from any guests on the show and cool stuff I put together for the community. There’s a lot more going on than just this show and the only way to find out is to get the emails. Plus, you’re busy. You don’t have time or decision. Desire to follow every single tidbit on social media. And you don’t have to because I’m
Amy Stone [00:47:30]:
happy to send it to you if you have a story you’d like to
Nancy Harrington [00:47:33]:
share with the audience. I have an open application for guests. Guess where you’ll find it? That’s right. On the website and in the emails. And that’s a wrap for this episode until next time. Remember that the journey is the destination. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, not me. Well, until just now I did just say it. But what I want you to hear today is that if your adulting journey isn’t going the way you expected, that just may not mean you’re lost. It may mean that you’re just on your way. And now the fine Print the Art of Imperfect Adulting Podcast and streaming video show is a copyrighted work created and produced by Amy Stone at Amy Says so. The music was written and produced by Todd Thompson at Dharma Bomb Studios. All rights are reserved. Anything expressed on this show is offered as entertainment, and the views of the guests may not always represent the ideas and viewpoints of the host. That’s me. Amy Stone does not intend to hold myself herself out to provide professional advice or recommendations of any kind. In the end, you and you alone
Amy Stone [00:48:36]:
need to make those kinds of decisions based on your personal and individual situation,
Nancy Harrington [00:48:41]:
needs, circumstances, and comfort level. Yeah, it’s a little weird for me to talk about myself in the third person, but you get the idea. This is Amy Stone signing off.