Standing in her Miami home with two young children at her feet, Amy Stone faced one of parenthood’s most challenging moments: explaining death to little ones. She had consulted doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists, filling pages with professional advice about how to tell her stepchildren that their grandfather had died. The pressure to “get it right” was overwhelming. Then the doorbell rang, and everything changed in the most unexpected way.
The visitor was her exterminator, a kind man the children knew well. When they excitedly announced their grandfather’s death, he simply looked down, placed his hand on the shoulder of one child, and said, “I heard that. Sad, isn’t it?” The children smiled and ran off to play. In that moment, he had accomplished everything the experts had told her to do: answer honestly, keep it simple, meet them on their level.
This experience crystallized something Amy had been noticing throughout her adult life—the most valuable guidance often comes not from credentialed professionals, but from ordinary people who have walked similar paths. Her story illuminates a broader truth about navigating life’s major decisions: lived experience sometimes provides more practical wisdom than institutional expertise.
The Myth of Professional Authority in Personal Decisions
Modern society has created what author Gabor Maté calls a transfer of authority from people to institutions. “We assume that anybody in the hospital is an expert qualified to take care of us,” Amy noted, drawing from Maté’s work. “And a lot of times that’s true. The guy driving the plane has been vetted and he’s got the expertise. And I’m not double checking it when I get on the airplane.”
However, this institutional trust becomes problematic when applied to deeply personal life decisions. Amy realized she had become “so focused on my age that I forgot that, of course, all the older people in my circle had already lived that part of their life.” The expertise she needed wasn’t housed in professional credentials—it existed in the lived experiences of people around her who had already navigated similar challenges.
This institutional bias shows up repeatedly in how we approach major life transitions. When considering career changes, relationship decisions, or parenting challenges, we often seek out experts first rather than connecting with people who have actually lived through what we’re facing. The result can be advice that’s technically sound but lacks the nuanced understanding that comes from personal experience.
Career transitions exemplify this pattern particularly well. Professional career counselors can provide frameworks and assessments, but the person who shifted from being a concert musician to an aviation instructor—as one of Amy’s podcast guests did—offers something different: proof that seemingly unrelated paths can connect in meaningful ways.
The Power of Cross-Demographic Learning
Amy’s approach to gathering life wisdom deliberately crosses traditional demographic boundaries. “There are these amazing times in my own life where I knew that I had gotten very, very helpful answers for things in my life from very unexpected places,” she said. “And these are places where they. This. The lines cross all the boundaries.”
This cross-demographic learning challenges our tendency to seek advice only from people who mirror our exact circumstances. A millennial might dismiss guidance from a Gen X perspective, or someone without children might feel their advice isn’t relevant to parents. But Amy’s experience suggests otherwise.
The exterminator who helped with her grief conversation didn’t need specialized training in child psychology. He simply drew from his own human experience of loss and his natural understanding of how to communicate with children. His advice worked because it came from authentic lived experience rather than theoretical knowledge.
This principle applies broadly to life’s major decisions. The person who started a business at 50 has insights valuable to someone considering entrepreneurship at 30. The individual who navigated divorce after 20 years of marriage offers perspective that benefits someone in a two-year relationship facing difficulties. The wisdom isn’t in the exact parallel of circumstances—it’s in the emotional intelligence and problem-solving skills that develop through living.
Embracing Imperfection as a Starting Point
Central to valuing lived experience over expertise is accepting what Amy calls “imperfect adulting”—the idea that we can’t wait to be perfect to start making decisions or offering guidance. “Imperfection is a starting point,” she explained, describing how this philosophy shaped her podcast’s approach.
Traditional expertise models suggest we should master a subject before having anything valuable to contribute. But lived experience operates differently. The person still navigating their own challenges often has the most relevant insights for someone facing similar circumstances. They remember the emotional reality of being in the thick of decision-making, not just the clean resolution that emerges later.
This perspective shift has practical implications for how we approach major life decisions. Instead of seeking the perfect expert or waiting until we have complete clarity, we can begin by connecting with people who have faced similar choices. Their imperfect journeys often provide more actionable guidance than polished professional advice.
Amy’s question to her guests reflects this philosophy: “Tell me how you learned these things. Tell me how you did these things.” She’s not asking for expertise—she’s asking for experience. The messiness of real human stories provides the kind of practical wisdom that helps others navigate their own imperfect paths.
Creating Space for Diverse Perspectives
Valuing lived experience requires holding space for perspectives that might conflict with our own views or choices. Amy deliberately interviews people whose decisions she might not have made herself, recognizing that “there’s tremendous value in being able to share differing opinions in a way where you can see how people got there.”
This approach acknowledges that lived experience doesn’t come in one-size-fits-all packages. The person who chose an unconventional medical approach may offer insights about autonomous decision-making that benefit someone facing entirely different health choices. The individual who relocated across the globe without speaking the local language provides perspective on managing uncertainty that applies to various life transitions.
The key is focusing on the decision-making process rather than the specific choice. How did someone gather information? What factors did they weigh? How did they manage fear or uncertainty? These process insights transfer across different life domains in ways that specific advice often doesn’t.
This principle challenges the polarized approach to advice-seeking that dominates much of modern discourse. Instead of dismissing perspectives that don’t align perfectly with our values, we can extract valuable insights about resilience, problem-solving, and navigating change.
Reframing Adult Development as Iterative
The lived experience model also reframes how we think about adult development. Rather than viewing adulthood as a series of problems to solve permanently, Amy’s approach recognizes that “we’re all trying to problem solve all the time.” The person who successfully navigated a career change at 35 will face new challenges at 45 that require different problem-solving approaches.
This iterative view makes lived experience more valuable than static expertise. The tools and strategies that helped someone through one life transition often prove useful in seemingly unrelated future challenges. Amy noticed this pattern in her own life: “Maybe I had searched for a strategy in my 20s for career, getting a job, and then I was reapplying that in something else in my 50s.”
Career changes exemplify this iterative nature particularly well. The traditional model suggests choosing a career path and following it linearly. But Amy’s guests demonstrate that “job hopper” might actually describe someone who has developed sophisticated skills in navigating transitions, evaluating opportunities, and adapting to change—capabilities that prove valuable across many life domains.
Understanding adult development as iterative helps explain why lived experience often trumps professional expertise. The person with experience knows that solutions aren’t permanent, that strategies need updating, and that the same challenge might require different approaches at different life stages.
The Accessibility Revolution in Wisdom Sharing
Technology has democratized access to lived experience in unprecedented ways. As Amy noted, “You can write a book now for free. Record an audio message on your phone and upload it to Spotify. That’s a zero dollar investment.” This accessibility means the barriers between those seeking guidance and those with relevant experience have largely disappeared.
The gatekeepers who traditionally controlled access to expertise—publishers, media companies, professional organizations—no longer hold exclusive power over who gets to share wisdom. This shift creates opportunities for authentic lived experience to reach people who need it, without requiring institutional validation.
However, this accessibility also requires new skills in evaluating the relevance and quality of experience-based guidance. Not all lived experience translates into useful advice for others. The key is learning to identify when someone’s experience aligns with your current challenges and when their problem-solving approach might transfer to your situation.
Amy’s approach offers a model: focus on stories where people have moved through their challenges rather than those still in the midst of them. “If I am very, very fresh to an experience and I’m going to tell you about it, my emotions are closer. My advice is more personal versus if I’m talking about that happened and I’m all the way through it.”
The democratization of wisdom sharing doesn’t eliminate the value of professional expertise—it simply expands the available sources of guidance. The most effective approach combines both: use institutional expertise for technical knowledge and lived experience for practical wisdom about navigating the emotional and personal aspects of major decisions.
The conversation between Amy and career strategist Raquel Sands reveals how this integration works in practice. Raquel brings professional frameworks for career development, while Amy offers the lived experience of building something from scratch and navigating uncertainty. Together, they provide a more complete picture than either perspective alone.
Ultimately, the choice between institutional expertise and lived experience isn’t binary. The most valuable guidance often emerges when we combine professional knowledge with authentic human experience, creating space for both credentialed advice and hard-won wisdom from people who have walked similar paths.
This article was inspired by an interview with Raquel Sands and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen 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.
Interview Transcript with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | September 25, 2025
Raquel Sands [00:00:04]:
And we’re doing this. Oh, my goodness.
Amy Stone [00:00:08]:
I feel very. I’m. I’m just. I’m here for the ride. All right, you’re in control.
Raquel Sands [00:00:14]:
I’m in control. And I’m someone who is very spontaneous. So we will just go for this ride. I am Raquel Sands, for those of us who. Who nobody knows me, unless maybe you have Googled me. And I met Amy through feminist podcast collective. So we are swapping seats. I will be interviewing her on her fabulous, awesome podcast in this milestone a hundred episodes. So we’ll get into all of that, but I don’t know. I can introduce myself. I am a career strategist. I help people find their purpose, find their path in these chaotic, ungrounded times. So just to level set. But everybody should know Amy, or hopefully you’re on the right spot.
Amy Stone [00:01:06]:
Yeah. But usually I’m the one that’s asking the questions. Today I’m going to be the one answering the questions. And so that’s what we’re doing today, and I’m excited to do it. I’m just going to keep saying that over and over and pretend that it doesn’t feel. It doesn’t go against every cell in my body to take over and start asking questions. Oh, no.
Raquel Sands [00:01:26]:
Well, I’m happy to answer questions, too, if that brings the comfort level. But I wanted to start with the origin story because I listened to your podcast and I was trying to pick some, like, weave. What. What is the mosaic? And. And all of this that. That you’ve created? And so just kind of to start. Why did you start this podcast or. Or this form. Format. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:01:50]:
Yeah. So that’s a great question. And this falls under one of the reasons that I think it’s a great idea to do this, because this is something that I feel like I’ve talked about a lot in some spaces, but maybe not directly to the audience that’s listening. So, you know, where did it come from? So the idea for the Art of Imperfect Delting started bouncing around in my head probably, well, we’re gonna say a year and a half to two years ago. And it was just this sort of concept that had two pieces. One that I was ready to speak to bigger, a more broad based group of people. I had been working directly with step parents for about five years. Always will love them, but I never wanted to launch a group program or a community that was exclusive to step parents, which melds very much with how our connection is. I just am a person where I like to open doors and be inclusive and Invite people to the table. And anytime I find myself in a spot saying, I’m just going to do this for this group. I’m just going to do this for this label. It doesn’t always vibe with me. So that was one thing that was going on. And the other thing that was going on was that I was beginning to notice at the ripe old age of my 50s. Now that I can say that I’m wise and in the second half of my life, hopefully, is that some of the solutions that I would do use for different things, they, they were. I could reapply them for different, different questions. So maybe I had searched for a strategy in my 20s for career, getting a job, and then I was reapplying that in something else in my 50s or, and, or I would find myself taking something from a hobby of my life and reapplying it to somewhere else. And I began to have this sort of sensation that maybe what to talk about with sort of the question behind the question or the tool behind the tool. So instead of talking to people about one very, very specific question and solution, is there a thread that ties this longer journey together? And so for me, that became the choices we make, the changes we go through, you know, and a bunch of different things. And for some reason that ties into imperfection for me, leaning into the idea that we can’t wait to be perfect to start. That imperfection is a starting point. And so that is the really loosey goosey origin story. It was a very, very vague and nebulous concept for a long time. I actually talked to, I put a call out to my friends and I tried to explain this to a hundred different people before I launched the show. And at least 50 of those people in the beginning were like, we do not understand what you’re talking about, Amy. So it took me a while to get it to a place where it was something I could describe to people. And that made sense.
Raquel Sands [00:04:59]:
Yeah, I mean, now I feel like just reading the name of the podcast, the Art of Imperfecting or the art, or maybe that was my own ad lib, my own Freudian slip. But the art, I think is so meaningful because it’s not about figuring things out necessarily. Art is a very subjective and. And not containment and then imperfect adulting. Like it’s. So I love that. So I, I want to kind of pick why podcasting as the format versus a blog or a video or. I don’t. I mean, I.
Amy Stone [00:05:37]:
Good question. Yeah, that is a good question. One of the easy answers is I had done it before. Okay. So I had done a podcast in 2016, so I knew the basic tech stuff of how to do it.
Raquel Sands [00:05:50]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:05:50]:
The other true answer to that is that this is a way for me to. And this is technology, Right. So, like, I can bring in an interview from the podcast in 2025 and use tech to transcribe it and turn it into a bunch of things. And so it’s easier for me to find people that I can interview on an audio podcast, an audio video show than to ask people to write articles. And so it was a broader base. Broader base. It was. It was an easier reach for me.
Raquel Sands [00:06:22]:
Okay, and then the. How. How did you. Did you feel resonance with those words? I mean, I think you said a little bit imperfection, but how did you. And then even landing on that word, I think as a. In the business world or in marketing, it’s hard to. To sit with certain words and certain frameworks.
Amy Stone [00:06:42]:
So, yes.
Raquel Sands [00:06:43]:
Curious. How did you birth the naming and all of this thing?
Amy Stone [00:06:47]:
So the art. The piece of the art is absolutely. What you said that. I think that when we’re getting advice for life stuff, very little of it is math. Right. I mean, sometimes it is, right. But if you’re talking about money, some of it’s math. But it’s the idea that when we’re talking about whether or not we should go to graduate school or whether we should be accountants or whether we should get married or divorced or do any of those things, whether we should move to Miami, that’s all very nuanced and personal. And so that’s where the art came from. And then adulting has its roots in sort of the jokes that would go around that I would see over the years that were like, am I the adult in the room? Like, am I supposed to know how to be an adult? Like, you know, when does. When does the adulting handbook show up? And one of my favorites is the realization, which happened to me early as a step parent, where I would be standing around and I would realize that people were coming to me for the answers. And I was looking over my shoulder like, wait a second, I need an adultier adult. I don’t know what I’m doing. And so that’s where I went. And then one of the things that I’ve definitely shared in a variety of places is that I was. It is harder to say the art of imperfect adulting than I would have realized. And so I maybe should have picked something that was a little more melodious. But when I told my young adult daughter the title of the show, she said, well, that’s very millennial of you, Mom. And I’m not a millennial, I’m Gen X. So I thought that was really funny. But yeah, yeah, talking about like the.
Raquel Sands [00:08:23]:
Broad strokes, I mean, I think this just resonates, hits all the chord. I’m a millennial. I just turn 33 a couple weeks ago and, and, and feeling like, you know, what does it even mean to categorize ourselves in. In certain generations and certain. Everything is just so overlapping, I think all of us in. So I love that because it, like you said, the broad strokes positions you to, to speak to. I love how you said it’s not about the tool, it’s like the why Y. One of my questions was going to be, was there a. Were you in. If you’re comfortable sharing a particular life moment or season that started getting you to think about the why or your why or I think you shared maybe a little bit, but I don’t know. Sure, back a little bit.
Amy Stone [00:09:14]:
So, I mean, definitely if you were to rewind to me in my teens and my 20s, I was a person who was very, very focused on present day and just solving the problem, the situation that was right in front of me. I wasn’t great at planning too far forward and I was avoiding analyzing my past at any and all costs. I was very much a survival type person and that was, that was how I made my decisions. But there have been several things which I think many of us go through, where you become sort of introspective about your life and figuring out the patterns and the cycles that are happening within your family, within your own personal life, within the mistakes and things that we repeat. And so definitely those, those things have happened to me over time that have caused me to be, to be, you know, to be thoughtful of it. The other thing is that I have arrived at this amazing time in my life where people are calling it midlife. And I have this weird knee jerk, like aversion to that, to that word and which makes no sense. This is just me. I’m not saying it’s a bad word or it’s a bad concept, but every time somebody wants to put me in the box of midlife, I’m like, am.
Raquel Sands [00:10:26]:
I in the middle?
Amy Stone [00:10:26]:
Am I gonna live to like, where is the end? You know, how do we know? And the other thing that was going on was that within midlife, which you have not gotten there yet, so you’re not inundated with this yet, is that people begin to talk to you about reawakening and reimagining and reinventing. And that also had me. I was like, I’m not redoing anything. Like, I don’t have any desire to go back and do. To be 25. It was great. Really liked it. But also, I was broke then and now I’m not. And so I want to do some of the things that I maybe took a pause from for a while to do other parts of my life, like raise kids, but it’s not going back to what I was. And so those things were bouncing around in my head, and I was like, I begin. And I wanted to sort of focus on the fact that it’s a journey of adulthood and that when we silo these things into millennial, Gen X or 20s, 30s, 40s, or this is your period of being a parent or not being a parent, which is another demographic split that I think doesn’t always do us a lot of favors. Right. Is then you’re creating as many problems as you might not be. And there are these amazing times in my own life where I knew that I had gotten very, very helpful answers for things in my life from very unexpected places. And these are places where they. This. The lines cross all the boundaries. And so, you know, I would have. One of the stories that I tell frequently is about telling my children, the younger children and my stepchildren, about when my dad died. And I got advice from my exterminator that happened to be in my house. And that’s not who you would think to ask. It’s not who I asked. I was. I had plastered the city of Miami hiring everybody who would give me an answer with professional advice and strategizing how to have these conversations. And all of these things very focused on a couple of pieces that were not actually right. Like, I had this concept in my mind that I was the only person I knew who had gone through this, and therefore I didn’t know who to ask. And I had this other concept, which was that if I studied it and asked doctors and psychiatrists and therapists enough that they were the people who would tell me how to do it, and they were very helpful. So I’m not going to say that they weren’t helpful, but I had pages and pages of notes and a lot of internal stress about I needed to do this right. Two of the kids were still very young. And, you know, know, like, I. I had this idea that I was going to mess it up if I screwed it up. So, long story short, the doorbell rings or knocks, and I Have two little kids at home. It’s a very big deal for little kids. When people come to the house, very exciting. They go running up to the door and they. I open the door, and this is somebody they know, and they come running up and they’re like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Did you know that my grandpa died? And I freeze like a deer in the headlights. I’ve got all this pressure. I’m sweating about that. We get this right, and I’ve got the information. And here is this very, very kind man who is. Just looks right down and puts his hand on the shoulder of my very young kid and just says, I heard that. Sad, isn’t it? And my kids look up at him and smile and run off and do the next thing that they were doing. And it was an inaction. Like, he did what everybody had been telling me to do. Answer the question honestly. Keep it simple. You know, meet them on their level. Expect that they’re gonna, you know, bring it back up. Don’t get overly emotional. I had spent all this time trying to get it right. He just gave me a very, very simple, quick example.
Raquel Sands [00:14:28]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:14:29]:
And I have so many of these where it’s like, I don’t need to be an expert in the topic of grief and children. What I need is an example from somebody of how they’ve done it and how they’ve walked it. And we get that very often by crossing the lines across age groups, across hobbies, across genders, across all of these things. And so that’s an example of my own imperfection. Sure. But also the type of conversations that I was hoping to offer and the stories that I was hoping to find, like, tell me how you learned these things. Tell me how you did these things. Wow.
Raquel Sands [00:15:03]:
Wow. There was so much there. But what called out to me was this. At least for me, maybe this says something about me, is this feeling of being an expert. I feel like that. That somehow an adult means now you know all these things, and now you have to fulfill all these expectations. And you.
Amy Stone [00:15:19]:
You.
Raquel Sands [00:15:20]:
You meet the bar, and then you keep raising the bar, whether that’s with children or with caretaking or in jobs or whatever it is. And I think that’s. It’s so unfortunate because there’s no time or space or energy or resources to be an expert in ourselves, alone in anything else.
Amy Stone [00:15:39]:
Right. Very strangely, being a child doesn’t prepare you to parent children. You know, living in the same house with your parents who are married, if you have married parents, in your house doesn’t prepare you for your own marriage in any. Any way that I’ve figured out. Although my parents were divorced, so maybe I’m a bad candid for that. But the other thing is that. And this, this idea I borrow from a guy named Gabor Mate who wrote a book called the Myth of Normal. And he talks about how in modern times, we have really transferred authority and expertise to institutions and not just people. So. And he talks about, even with buildings, he’s like, so, you know, we assume that anybody in the hospital is an expert qualified to take care of us. And a lot of times that’s true, Right? A lot of times that’s true. The guy driving the plane has been vetted and he’s got the expertise. And I’m not double checking it when I get on the airplane. I trust that process. But the backside of that is that we sometimes devalue the experience of the just people who are hanging out around us. You know, they got my exterminator. I don’t know if he has some past history where he had grief training, but what I realized shortly after that is that I was so focused on my age that I forgot that, of course, all the older people in my circle.
Raquel Sands [00:16:59]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:16:59]:
Had already lived that part of their life. And I could have asked them, hey, you guys, what. What do you know about, you know, what do you recommend for me? What, what, you know, what can you. How can you help me with this process? So it’s the idea of balancing out and rewarding and honoring and raising up the voices of people based on lived experience.
Raquel Sands [00:17:21]:
Yeah. Wow. And that. That’s beautiful because that’s so hard, is creating the space. And I was gonna ask, have you come up with or encountered guests that maybe you didn’t agree with their perception or the way they view things or anything challenging? And then I guess the flip side, have you adopted that or how has that challenged your. Your mentality? Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:17:47]:
So, yeah, this is a great question. Right. Because one of the things that I was very careful or that I thought about is I don’t actually intend for this to be the. The Amy Show. It’s not my ideas and my philosophies that I’m putting out into quite the opposite, actually, because I only have. One of the reasons you go out and find people to interview is because I only have my very limited set of experiences. And I’ve done a lot of amazing things in my life, but still only the story of one. Right. And to be really helpful to a bigger group of People. It is. It is the. It is the. The value of finding somebody. Like, I’m not a millennial, so to find a millennial perspective, to find somebody and ask you to share it. I was talking to somebody earlier today about the fact that with lockdown, we all experienced it, but it actually is very different what we experienced depending on where we were and how old we are and what was going on in our life. So it’s, you know, that’s sort of the thing with that. So with that in mind, I really do think there’s a lot of benefit to be able to share experiences and viewpoints that don’t align with mine. And. And there have been some. So there have definitely been some. There’s been at least one person who probably has a pretty. It comes through in the episode. She’s got a very strong opinion about vaccinations. That is different than the decision I make in my own personal life. And we actually talk about that, and we talk about how she made her decision. And. And I hope I did a good job bringing that together, because I think that there’s tremendous value in being able to share differing opinions in a way where you can see how people got there. And so there’s not a ton of them that have happened, but there definitely are some. You know, so there’s an anti vaxx when there’s somebody. There’s people who’ve had experience in their life that I probably wouldn’t have done the same way if it was me. But we’re not really talking about what I would do. And then the one that comes up more often is people have experiences that I just have never had.
Raquel Sands [00:19:49]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:19:49]:
So I’m asking them to share something, and I just don’t even, you know, I don’t even know where to begin or know what they’re. They’re talking about. I interviewed a woman who drives an Amish taxi. She’s an Amish taxi driver. I didn’t even know what that was. That’s the reason I wanted to hear the story. I was like, what does this mean? And so, you know, we talk a lot about, or we hear a lot about the polarization of media and opinions right now in modern society, I guess, or modern media. Whatever I can do to be a person who allows for two different opinions to be safely shared, I think that’s good because at the end of the day, I don’t really want to tell people what I think they should do. I really do want to give people a differing perspective so that they can make their own decisions. But that’s not to say that I don’t worry about it. I do worry that somebody will hear me have a guest on the show and they will think that I align with it or that I agree with it. And that’s just part. I mean, that’s just. I just had to swallow that and say I will cross that bridge if, if and when we come to it.
Raquel Sands [00:20:59]:
Yeah. Oh, my. And that was going to lead me to another question is how do you handle or. Or what has worked or what hasn’t worked in terms of the visibility, like what have you. What has helped you in engaging in those spaces where for the most part it sounds like it’s been everything kind of going well, the challenging or the things that may be holding the dissonance. What has helped you when you’re, when you’re creating this visibility for yourself or for the topic? Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:21:30]:
So visibility is a thing. So when you become more visible, people then have opinions about what they see about you. And that is, that is a little bit weird. So, like, I’m not famous, right? I’m not. I’m just me still. But it is, There are people out there that they have, they know who, they know who I am. I will run into people who I am seen for a long time and they will talk to me about things because they hear on the podcast it’s a very, very interesting experience to have because they’re having a relationship with me that I am both a part of and also not a part of. Not a part of.
Raquel Sands [00:22:05]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:22:06]:
And so that’s really interesting. The. I am very conscious of the fact that it’s my production and I’m a big part of it. But the show and the company and the business, they’re actually very different than Amy Stone. Right. So I’m a part of it, but there is a difference. And even though I have a public facing Persona, right. Like, so there’s big pieces, like, there’s stories that I tell. Like there’s stories that I tell over and over again that I know are out there. There’s also pieces of my life that I keep separate. And so. And I try and have that boundary for myself. And I think that that’s how I’m stepping into that and trying to work with that. It’s fun. Talk to me when the audience is 10 times the size it is now. I’ll have a different perspective than I do today. But that’s how I’m sort of balancing it because I’m okay. I love the fact that people have different opinions and different ways of looking at the world. I think that’s really one of the great things about the human experience. And there is a line right. There absolutely is a line there where if somebody came and was, you know, had a position on the show that I didn’t feel like I could reconcile or I thought that they were using the platform in a way that was harmful, that I would probably make a different decision. But when I, you know, if I talk to somebody about a belief that they have or a decision they’ve made for their own life. Yeah, they’re really just talking about their experience. And I think that that can be helpful even and entertaining even if we don’t agree with it.
Raquel Sands [00:23:51]:
Right. Yes. No, that’s so important because I. There’s, I think a YouTube channel or something that I sometimes. Well, it’s blanking out, but they bring the kind of polarity to get. And I think that it speaks volumes about how to hold that space because that also isn’t a manual of how to hold the binaries and have it be and not either or what has helped you. I guess, behind the scenes, maybe we get into a little bit of the. The technicality has there. Do you have a framework of either a mental or a logistical. Of. Of either vetting or for your own. What’s the boundary or. Yeah, I don’t know anything like that. That.
Amy Stone [00:24:36]:
So, yeah, well, the process, the way it works, like, people pitch their ideas and I review them. I take about 1 out of 10 pitches. The majority of them that don’t come through are just because they’re not on topic. So, you know, I say, this is the theme of the show, choices and changes, personal stories. And people will submit things that are clearly not personal stories. They’re like, I would like to talk about, you know, founding my business. And I’m like, okay, that’s a. I’m sure that’s a great story. That’s just not the story I tell. Go pitch guy Russell. Right. And then there are some people who, when they pitch their story, they seem maybe like they’re too close to it still. Because that is something that I watch for, is that they’re actually. I think that. And I will put this in my own lens of my own experience so that I’m not putting it on anybody else. If I am very, very fresh to an experience and I’m going to tell you about it, my emotions are closer. My advice is more personal versus if I’m talking about that happened and I’m all the way through it and then I can very, you know, much more neutrally say, this is, this is what happened, this is how I did it, and this is, this is how I think it can help you. And so when people pitch things that seem very emotional and very still going on, those I, those sometimes I steer away from just because I don’t. They’re not quite ready to talk about it.
Raquel Sands [00:26:01]:
Yeah, yeah, that’s really. And I guess a follow up. Is it, it, Is it easy to tell or. I don’t know if somebody has, if it’s not fresh enough, but it’s kind of a returning to that. I’m thinking of like a callus or something that.
Amy Stone [00:26:18]:
Oh, no, I don’t think I would know that. I don’t think I would know that. Like, it does. It’s easier than you would think when people are hyper emotional about it because it’s. Their pitches are very emotional. Okay, let me tell you the story of the, you know, my, the troubles in my life. And I’m like, ah, this doesn’t sound like it’s quite over yet. Versus when somebody’s like, yeah, here’s something I experienced and here’s how I worked through it. So it’s just, you know, because it’s a little tiny form, you know, two or three sentences and that’s all you get. So then I would not have known how quick I could make that decision. And I probably don’t always get it. Right.
Raquel Sands [00:26:58]:
Yeah, yeah. And any advice. This was another part of my, my questions. Any advice for people who are curious to pitch or want to share to someone who might want to pitch any, I don’t know, best practice or so.
Amy Stone [00:27:13]:
No, that’s a great question, actually. So it’s different on different shows, but the number one thing is for sure, you know, pay attention to what the show is actually about.
Raquel Sands [00:27:25]:
Okay.
Amy Stone [00:27:27]:
And because I do get, I get, I get some. That I’m like, wow, this. I don’t even, you know, I don’t even know why they. Because it takes, you know, even if you go all the way through it, you’re talking 10, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, I don’t know the 5 minutes of your life to fill it out. And when it doesn’t match at all, I was like, wow, that’s okay, that’s interesting. But that’s. And people say that all the time. You go on any podcast forum and they’re going to say, you know, do this. And I’ve done what I can to make it really, really clear, like, this is what I’m looking for. And then the thing is, is, you know, because we’re telling stories. So the more clearly defined the story is, the more appeal it usually has. And that, that just, you know, that just goes with experience and with practice.
Raquel Sands [00:28:15]:
Yeah. Anything that has. I don’t know if surprised is the word, but looking back, any standouts, I guess, moments in this moment. I mean, maybe if we, if I.
Amy Stone [00:28:26]:
Ask you in the guesting process, the biggest surprise is how many people have wanted to be on the show. That has been a really, really. So that was definitely a question. You know, would there be people? Would my, would my theme make sense? Would anybody understand what I was talking about? And then would anybody want to tell their story and be a guest on the show? And that has been a lot of fun to see that so many people are interested in telling their story. That has been the biggest surprise. There are people who will tell very personal stories and there are people who. There are people who are very kindly saying how they think it’s helpful to hear other people’s stories and to share the stories. And so those. That’s. That feels good.
Raquel Sands [00:29:18]:
Yeah. I don’t know if this comparison is. Well, I’ll just say it, but it feels like a chicken. Chicken noodle. Soup for the soul.
Amy Stone [00:29:26]:
Oh, yeah. Chicken soup for the soul. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Raquel Sands [00:29:29]:
I remember those books growing up. And this may not be that, but just what reminds me is. Or what comes to mind for me is just the. I. Just the breath, the depth of. Of all the different sort. And that’s. It’s hard to find that now because there’s so much coming at us from different spots. But it’s not, it’s not necessarily a mirroring effect or, or a safe space. So I, I love that. Any, Any surprises in terms of stories that you could have done. Never imagined hearing like the Amish taxi for me is.
Amy Stone [00:30:03]:
That’s Amish taxi. 100%. Yeah. No, I love hearing all the variety of stories and I’ve really enjoyed that part of the process. So there’s been lots of stories that have surprised me. One of my. And they’re all out there so people can like listen to them. I do a lot of stories about career change, which I think is so helpful because even today we, I think a lot of people. I would love to tell you that I don’t think the 21 year olds of the world still feel this pressure, but we do feel pressure that we’re supposed to pick a career and choose it forever, which matches very few people’s lived experience. And so the More of those stories that there are, the more supportive it is. Most of the people I interview are women, and most of the people listening are women. But I interviewed a guy whose name is Nathaniel Ramsey. He was a concert musician, like a symphonic musician, like some professional musician. And he shifted his career to being. He is an aviation instructor. So he became a pilot and a pilot instructor. This gets better. So then we’re having this conversation about why he made this change and all of these things. And he goes through and he explains to me how what these two careers have in common. And that to me was really surprising because. And I even said to him, I was like, never in a million years would I have been able to draw that line of how these two things had anything in common. But he’s right. He’s living it. These are the things they have in common. And so that was really interesting to me to see that, because that is something that. When you have a broad based. When you have a life that bounces around, you know, and you feel like you don’t fit into the LinkedIn formula of tell me your history. Right. I am beginning to wonder if anybody actually feels like they fit into that spreadsheet. But, yeah, you know, there is a through line of how did you get from here to there? So the person who’s living it can connect the dots. And so hearing somebody else do that, I hope is. Is helpful because we tell people we’re reinventing or we’re doing, and these are fine. There’s nothing wrong with this or second chapter or next chapter or the next level or however we want to tell ourselves, but they’re connected. Like, we don’t go. It’s not usually. Actually. I’d love to hear a story of someone who was totally different. But even if you go back to school, say, I read a story today in the newspaper of somebody who went back to law school and took the bar when they were 70 years old. There’s. It’s still connected, whatever he did before that, which I didn’t even pay any attention to. So I can’t share that part of the story.
Raquel Sands [00:32:50]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:32:51]:
Is a part of his journey.
Raquel Sands [00:32:52]:
Yeah. No, that. And that’s exactly. I feel like in the nutshell of going back to the title, the Art of Imperfect Adulting, because adulting just. I feel like it’s a. It’s a cyclical thing. It’s not like.
Amy Stone [00:33:04]:
I think it probably is. Yeah.
Raquel Sands [00:33:05]:
You know. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:33:06]:
I think it’s iterative, for sure.
Raquel Sands [00:33:08]:
Yeah. And that whole concept of the. The linear or a binary or whatever it is. Like, it’s for me, what’s what been coming up as. As a career person.
Amy Stone [00:33:19]:
Right. Oh, right. Yes. Yeah.
Raquel Sands [00:33:21]:
No, yeah. I. And I talked on. I don’t remember someone else’s podcast or maybe in the podcast collective that we’re both a part of that I used to have a lot of shame around the word job Hopper.
Amy Stone [00:33:33]:
Yes.
Raquel Sands [00:33:34]:
Yeah. And it’s like why we’re already trying to do whatever it is adult and then to add the emotion and the mental fatigue and expectations. And so it gets hard to make the decision to feel connected, to do all the things. I’m going to check out those podcasts. I haven’t listened to those other episodes, but.
Amy Stone [00:33:56]:
No, do check them out. It’s one of the most popular things that people want to talk about, which I think directly connects to the fact that the people who go through it feel the stress of going through it enough that they want to share it with other people who are doing it. And I think that the problem solving process for a person.
Raquel Sands [00:34:15]:
Yeah, yeah.
Amy Stone [00:34:16]:
Reinventing their career is probably very similar to a kid who’s picking their major in school. Like, so any of those transitions, I think there’s overlapping things and I think that bizarrely we probably do a very bad job of getting people ready for that.
Raquel Sands [00:34:31]:
Yeah. I was going to say, are there any. Have you noticed any common themes throughout the. Your this season of the podcast or not? And what might.
Amy Stone [00:34:41]:
Oh, yeah. So career change.
Raquel Sands [00:34:43]:
Okay.
Amy Stone [00:34:44]:
Very common topic. There’s eight categories. So I actually go through and sort everything into eight categories. And so, but. And the two most popular that are pitched because that’s how things are organized are the career change and then the relationship change. So those are the two in. In a whole variety of things. Like. So I’ve got stories about people who stayed in their relationship, who ended their relationship for a variety of reasons and for different things. With parents, with children, with spouses, with whomever. Yeah, all kind of things like that.
Raquel Sands [00:35:17]:
Wow. And I guess what is that through line? Maybe show around us as humans in this day and age that what is career? Which at least for me, I remember when I was starting, I was like, what’s my purpose? What’s my thing? And then. And then the same with the relationship. What does it mean to have a. A soul mate or the forever. And so there’s this. These big things and then anything, I guess that’s on the flip side missing or that you would like to see or that you haven’t seen as much.
Amy Stone [00:35:46]:
That we think that they’re all coming through. Like, I mean, people are pitching things. It is. I mean, there are stories that people probably don’t want to tell publicly, which makes absolute sense. And there is. The show is grow every day, and so there’s more visibility. So, like, there are probably people who are cautious about coming to tell their story because of the visibility of that it will be out there. And so that makes a lot of sense. I mean, there is a story behind all of those questions about change, which comes up in a lot of things, which is, you know, what is it saying about me? Like, what is it saying about who I am and my worth based on how I make these decisions. But. And I think that there are people who do tell the stories from that perspective. I went more pragmatically because I think it’s easier to problem solve and to identify with when we talk about the change we make in the decision than to jump right into with a stranger. Let’s talk about my deep search for my personal identity as I went through, through, through this relationship change.
Raquel Sands [00:36:48]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amy Stone [00:36:50]:
Because that.
Raquel Sands [00:36:51]:
I feel like if, if, if I was that person receiving, I would feel a little. Well, I’m also very. I feel I’m. I hope I’ve gotten comfortable with peeling back the layers because I think that’s one of the things of, of being an adult, of being a human, since we’ve been so dressed up and layered and masked. But I love the pragmatism because I think that gets to the core, or at least some part of it is we’re all trying to problem solve all the time.
Amy Stone [00:37:19]:
We’re all trying to problem solve all the time. And if there is a part of this journey where you get there and you don’t have to do that. I haven’t gotten there yet. Yet. And so. And I think that’s a power tool. It’s like, you know, if you are holding out, that you will figure it out and there will never be a time where you’re not asking questions. I think that, you know, at least in my case, I think you can make yourself a little bit miserable. Like you end up in it. I mean, you know. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Raquel Sands [00:37:46]:
Yeah. And then what is. If there is a feeling or a thought that you would. You have wanted people to take away from either certain episodes or just the season of the podcast as it is now? Has that changed or.
Amy Stone [00:38:02]:
Oh, that’s a good question. So I did, and I may have told you this. Other times I try and tell people that different. I tried to keep a Very open mind that I had this idea and to see what it would grow into and what people wanted. Because I think that if I had had a very, very tight vision of what I wanted it to be, I could have squished it into making it into something that it wasn’t. So, you know, I didn’t know what it would become, but what I hoped it would be. I find it very, very helpful to hear stories from people who have done the thing that I think I want to do, and they did it.
Raquel Sands [00:38:44]:
Wow.
Amy Stone [00:38:45]:
I think that’s very helpful. Right. It’s like, oh, I want to run a marathon. Oh, look, there’s somebody else who did it.
Raquel Sands [00:38:50]:
Great. Wait. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:38:51]:
Somebody else said, you know. And so I wanted to provide that, like, sort of place to get support and validation. And then my hope is that it would be entertaining.
Raquel Sands [00:39:06]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:39:07]:
And fun to listen to, but also inspiring and motivating for people to be able to go and do the things that maybe they’re thinking they’re not sure that they can do. Because there’s so many times where, you know, I mean, so when I was 21, I moved across the country. Right. Like. Right. And not everybody does that. You don’t have to do it. But if you’re sitting in a room thinking, oh, should I do it? You know, and you hear the story of somebody who did do it, then great. I have at least two interviews with people who moved across the globe, and they don’t even speak the language, which is definitely a thing I didn’t do.
Raquel Sands [00:39:42]:
Oh, yeah, same.
Amy Stone [00:39:43]:
But they did. And so it can be done. And if.
Raquel Sands [00:39:47]:
If.
Amy Stone [00:39:47]:
And I think that those are fun, fun stories to hear, and I hope that people will be. I hope they will be. Enjoy. They enjoy them, and that it inspires them to just do things that are part of making their own life the next best version of themselves that they can. Yeah.
Raquel Sands [00:40:07]:
Yeah. I love that because the. The groundedness. You know, we can’t see it on TV or movies, but it. But.
Amy Stone [00:40:13]:
Oh, yeah. Because I don’t think it’s inspirational necessarily to hear that some billionaire has shot themselves into space. Like a. I don’t. I don’t. If they invited me to go in this rocket, I don’t know if I would go. I’m definitely not signing up to go to Mars. I don’t have any interest. I mean, that does not sound like fun, but. But I know that other people do want to do it, and I love that for them. The. But. Yeah. That these are actual people who are talking about things that They’ve done, you know, so whether that’s a health diagnosis that they’re working through, whether it’s a story of something that happened to them. Because one of the ways to categorize the stories is some of them are decisions that people made. Like I changed my major in school, I quit my job. Others are when people react to things that happen to them. My spouse died unexpectedly. I was in a car accident unexpectedly. The world shut down and I had to stay home for a year. That one we all had. But yeah, so those, those stories and, and to hear how other people have innovatively problem sourced them.
Raquel Sands [00:41:22]:
Yeah. And I guess with. I’m going to try and bridge that innovatively. Problem solving or sourcing. How do you keep up the momentum for your podcast? Any, any.
Amy Stone [00:41:35]:
So it has been so part of the story. It’s good that you. Part of the reason I was able to do this is that is, is, you know, is that my, I had less coaching appointments.
Raquel Sands [00:41:45]:
Okay.
Amy Stone [00:41:45]:
Than I had for a while. Like so my, I had open time in my schedule. And so that is a piece of the story. How is Amy able to do all of these things and that. So, and that’s just the reality of what my schedule was like. I’m also about to be an empty nester. So I’m not running around chasing small children right now. So I do have time. And so that meant that I had time on my calendar to see what I would do. And I just committed to. There’s a, you know, there’s a big year in online business and in business overall.
Raquel Sands [00:42:17]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:42:18]:
Big push about Anti Hustle and don’t, you know, don’t do these things. And, and that’s fair. Right. But I also am a believer that sometimes, if you want to get an extraordinary result, you sometimes need to sort of ask yourself, am I willing to do something that is a little extra. And so I put myself in a position where I was like, let’s see what I can do and let’s, let’s find out what critical mass is and, and how many of these I can do and how fast. Wow.
Raquel Sands [00:42:49]:
And, and I was gonna ask what’s one way you’ve changed because of this project. But I also kind of wanna putting yourself in creating that space for you to find that critical mass. How do you think you’ve changed? Or is it too soon to.
Amy Stone [00:43:02]:
It might be too soon. Actually that’s a really good thing. So I will say like once a, once a month, periodically on a schedul. I sort of look at my own Sort of strengths and how I think it’s going and what I’m trying to create. And I do have at the backside of this, I do have a very big pie in the sky dream of what I hope to be able to build on a couple of different levels. And I am one of those people that I would love it to happen as fast as possible. Never quite as fast as I think it should go, but it’s actually going very quickly. And so that’s. I have to. I have to remind myself of that. But I am surprised at how much I’ve been able to accomplish. I’m very, very pleased. Part of this is that there are some tools that I found along the way that are able to do pieces of this that make it much faster, and that’s phenomenal. And I am at the critical mass where I’m. I’m looking to begin to build teams to produce it. But that comes with the thing that has to actually be making, you know, money to pay all the people. And so that’s the next wave of it. That’s the next wave of it. And so how have I changed? I don’t know how to answer that, actually. I. I think that. I mean, I would like to say that I’m the same person that I’ve always been and that this hasn’t changed me at all, but I don’t know that that’s true. I think that one of the things that has definitely changed is as I’ve done this, I’ve become much more comfortable in me being the voice of what this is and how I want it to be assembled. And that’s helpful as I begin to bring people on and teach them, because there’s many, many people who would like to say, well, we think you should do it this way. So, like, when I was talking to people about the initial concept instead of adult, many, many people wanted me to use the word parent or they wanted me to use the word mom. And I had to go back and say, I do see what you’re saying. But one of the things that I think is very strange about modern times is that we put a sort of a value judgment on the classification of whether or not you raise children. And I think that’s weird, mostly because almost half of society doesn’t do it.
Raquel Sands [00:45:23]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:45:24]:
And so I was like, yeah, you know, like. Like, definitely a lot of the stories are related to, you know, the. The job of parenting or caregiving. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to be the person who was like, you can Only come through the door if you’re a mom or a parent.
Raquel Sands [00:45:38]:
Yeah. Wow, that’s so, that’s so pivotal. And I, I had a question. I don’t want to lose it. Oh, no. And once I say it, it’s like flying.
Amy Stone [00:45:48]:
It’s out there in the ether. Where did it go?
Raquel Sands [00:45:51]:
Yeah, no, I think it was around and then. And having that voice, like being able to stand on your own ground and say that. Was that already there, do you think, or it’s just been amplified or has it changed that quality?
Amy Stone [00:46:07]:
Oh, there have been parts of my life where that was defined in other things. So I had practiced that in other spaces. I definitely think that it is absolutely something that can be really, really scary. There have been times when so, yeah, so that’s, that’s something that I’ve gotten stronger about over the year when I’m not sure about the opinion I have. I’m not necessarily as, like, bossy about it because I’m not sure. So if I walk into a room and somebody says, what do you feel about this? And I’m like, I don’t actually know what we’re talking about. So I try to really be like, I don’t know, what do you know? Why don’t you tell me and then I’ll share with you. But then there are other things that I feel, you know, pretty confident that my opinion is my opinion and I’m fine speaking up about it. So, like, one of the things that, like, I, you know, many, many people in the United States of America have a very, very faith based life and they are members of religious congregations and all of it. That’s great. It’s totally good. And I, but I have this sort of thing where I’m like, I. If you have a faith based business, I like to know about that in advance. I think it’s very, very helpful to say that in advance because then I know, like, Hobby Lobby, they’re right there with it. Yeah, right. This is this. We have this. And I’m like, yay. You know, I have a lot of respect for that. That’s one of the reasons to start your own business so that you can stamp it with your own morals and values. But, and so many, many years ago I released a podcast that I was like, I think that if you are running a faith based business, you should say, set that up front. And, and I, when I released that, Raquel, I was afraid I was going to be smited. I was like, I was like waiting for the lightning to come and hit me. On my desk didn’t happen. And. But I. I mean, I don’t think that. I mean, I don’t think it’s that controversial of an opinion. I think it’s very helpful to tell people.
Raquel Sands [00:48:06]:
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, it’s just transparency, and that might just be one of my core values.
Amy Stone [00:48:13]:
Yeah. And people. What happens, I will say, is people will think they’re being transparent, but they’re. They don’t real that they’re not. And that’s just, you know, that’s just the way life is. That’s not people being. That’s not people being bad.
Raquel Sands [00:48:25]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I want to kind of start to wrap up with some other reflection pieces. What do you. And we talked a little bit about future. So what do you hope? And if you don’t want to share or tease it out to people, then that’s fine. We just keep it under wraps. But what do you hope that the next either 100 episodes or that this. This podcast in general becomes.
Amy Stone [00:48:51]:
Oh, so. So I am a person who I. If you tell me to dream big, sometimes I can really do it right. So before. Even before this launched, I, like, went. I came downstairs one day and I was like. My family was there, and I was like, so I want to talk about buying a building. You know, and then, like, the people in my family were just like, oh, my God, what are you talking about? You. And you put this out. So I would love for this to grow into something that is bigger and in a lot of ways, ways. I do think there’s a. There’s a question that underlines this that we don’t really. I don’t have an answer, and I don’t think anybody does, actually. The way that people consume information and the way they search for information is rapidly changing. And so. But there’s a. There’s a problem that needs to be solved, and I’ve been talking about it with. In small circles for a long time, which is that there’s more information than there ever has been before. And there’s also. It’s harder to get the information we’re looking for than it ever has before. And this is exacerbated on a local level. So I’m about to take a trip out to the West Coast. I can Google, you know, dune buggies in Oregon and find that information, but if I want to know about construction happening on my street, that’s harder to find, and it’s really, really weird. And so there’s that. The other thing that’s happening. And that’s a problem, right, because you have businesses who want to promote and people who want to shop and they’re not matching up. And so that should resolve some way. I’m not going to solve that problem because I don’t even know. But no, Right. The other thing that is going on is that for the first time in, let’s say, pretty close to 100 years, new research just showed that 83% of Americans have streaming. Streaming. They’re on streaming accounts for information and Entertainment, but only 30% are connected with cable and broadcast. And so the, and I think you could match that out for Hollywood things. So the, the gatekeepers who are curating the big pieces of content and the way we deliver things, that system has shifted like it has, it has flipped. And there are new networks, right, who are, who stepped up. Apple, Netflix. On the podcasting side, you’ve got Amazon and Wondery and Sirius. Those people who are producing things and they’re growing those things. But it’s not done yet. The switch is not complete because we still have like the people who are on TV went into those other places. The people who were in Hollywood went onto the streaming platforms. And so there’s a gap that I think is going to progress and I don’t know how it’s going to resolve. But to be a part of that, to be providing something that is, is there and is creating this variety of information and talk show format stuff for people who are curious about personal development. I’d love to be there.
Raquel Sands [00:51:54]:
Yes. No, I love. And that’s what I, I for those. Well, nobody knows me here. Well, I don’t know. But I also didn’t think I was gonna get into podcasts because I thought it was and I thought there was so many. But on the flip side, I, when I still drive, I don’t commute as much, but when I drive, I still go to my radio. And I think, oh my gosh, radio has been since, I don’t know how long and I think since.
Amy Stone [00:52:20]:
Yeah, since the 1830s. Yeah, yeah.
Raquel Sands [00:52:22]:
So I mean, it’s comforting to some extent that there are these main staples that just carry people through or that through line or I don’t know, there’s just pieces that.
Amy Stone [00:52:33]:
Yeah, yeah, no, and I think, I mean, I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I really, really don’t. But I mean, audio, if audio has been even before, if you, so if you back up like so audio through radio waves, that’s. That’s one thing. But if you back it up a way, way, way long ago. People orating and talking goes back to forever, like storytelling as a way of carrying things on. But we use it differently. We use it differently than ever before. And you can now, like, if you are a person who wants, I mean, just insert, you know, you want to join a Bible study, you want to research, you know, Buddhism, you want to learn about knitting socks on Tuesday evenings, or you know any how to make, how to dye wool purple. And you’re on an airplane, you can search and come up with that and choose your method. Do you want to read it, do you want to watch it and do you want to listen to it? And I think that that’s really powerful. I think that anytime I will say this is. You said saturated. I think anytime anybody tells me don’t do this because it’s saturated, I take two things out of that. One, that person is selling advice on how to do something. That’s the only time anybody ever says that. Right. And the second thing is that I just have this thing. It’s like, well, you know, who, who. Why do. How do you know? Yeah, like, how do you know? Because it doesn’t matter. I mean, it does, right? Podcasting is, well, the gatekeepers are gone. You can write a book now for free. Right? It was if you have to pay, you know, like back in the old days, if you wanted to make. Well, even today, what does it cost to make a movie? $300 million or something ridiculous. That’s. You got to know what you’re doing, you know, record an audio message on your phone and update it to Spotify. That’s a zero dollar investment. So.
Raquel Sands [00:54:18]:
Right, that’s right. Accessibility. And, and that’s the thing why I, I decided to do a podcast just for the fun of it without the intention, without a clear expectation. Because I, I love how the technology is, is overlapping. You know, the Global north, the Global south, people.
Amy Stone [00:54:34]:
Yes.
Raquel Sands [00:54:35]:
You just have a, an old piece of tech. Old, old iPhone or whatever it is. No, it’s amazing. And I guess to, to wrap it up, what’s something that you’re about you or about this podcast that your listeners should know or it might be nice to know, but they don’t know.
Amy Stone [00:54:53]:
Dude, stumped me. You. I, like, this was like, this was such a good question. Like, and I was like, oh my God, what is the thing that people like? I mean, I just seem like, you know, there, I mean, there are pieces in my life, like we talked about that are off limits for the show. Like, and I’M pretty upfront with people about those boundaries. I worry sometimes that I talk too much about, like, locations of where I am and stuff like that. That’s one of the things I’m like. But, hi. I. Like, I was really, really thinking about this, and I was like, wow, what are the things that people should know about me that they don’t know? I was like. I was like. I. That’s. I. I don’t know. I have to like, I was like. I was like, am I. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. There have to be things. I mean, I don’t know. I’m usually barefoot when I’m recording the podcast.
Raquel Sands [00:55:41]:
Yeah, yeah, same.
Amy Stone [00:55:42]:
So there’s that. I brush my teeth before every single episode. Okay. I don’t know why.
Raquel Sands [00:55:49]:
It just emits a cleanliness.
Amy Stone [00:55:51]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Raquel Sands [00:55:54]:
And the last question. How would you describe the energy or medicine of this season, of the podcast, and or of your life that you’re creating this podcast from?
Amy Stone [00:56:05]:
I love this question. I love this question. And I think that the. Because I would never have asked it for myself and I wouldn’t have thought about it as what I was doing, but. And I think I mentioned it earlier before, the concept of like. And maybe I didn’t. Maybe it was another conversation I had today, the concept of, like, an avalanche or a snowball. So really, really expansive. Like, I am hoping that what I’m trying to do with my life and with the stories I’m telling and the ideas I’m sharing, that they start with a word or two or a conversation between me and you, and they grow and they spread on their own. And so that would be, like, you know, really expansive and with volume and momentum of their own.
Raquel Sands [00:56:49]:
Yeah. Beautiful. Well, those were all my questions, unless I need a brainstorm. What’s your favorite color?
Amy Stone [00:56:57]:
Those are. Those. That’s. I was. I was wondering. I was like. I was like, what? Somebody do the three questions for me? No, that would be. That’s one of the reasons. It’s like, I’ve. I come up with those and I. Then I answer them for myself. Like, there’s. Everybody knows all my little answers to those goofy little questions, like, what’s your movie, Candy, Amy? Yes. That question flaps, by the way, because nobody goes to the movies anymore. But, no, these have been great, Raquel. This was a great experience, and I had fun talking about it, and I appreciate you pushing me.
Raquel Sands [00:57:27]:
No, thank you for having me. This was great. I’ve never co hosted and interviewed the host, so this is spectacular. This is awesome. And thank you for having me. Honestly appreciate it.
Amy Stone [00:57:39]:
Same.