Latest / Where We Rise / 33 | "No Matter What" | Rising Through Trauma and Finding Beauty

Transcript

33 | "No Matter What" | Rising Through Trauma and Finding Beauty · Where We Rise

0:00
Khalila McCoy: Hey, I'm Khalila McCoy.
0:03
Khalila McCoy: And this is a show that reminds you that even the most difficult chapters can lead to something beautiful.
0:09
Khalila McCoy: This is Where We Rise.
0:12
Khalila McCoy: Hey there.
0:15
Khalila McCoy: Welcome to this week's episode.
0:18
Khalila McCoy: Whether this is your very first time tuning in or you've been hanging out with me for a while now, thank you so much for being here.
0:25
Khalila McCoy: I've been having such a fantastic time creating this space, and it feels so good to have someone to share it with.
0:32
Khalila McCoy: In today's episode, you're going to hear a lot of joy, laughter, and silliness as I talk with Amanda Goldman-Petrie.
0:41
Khalila McCoy: And I know based on that description, you might think I'm interviewing a comedian or diving into some lighthearted story, but no.
0:48
Khalila McCoy: Amanda opens up about strained family relationships, abuse, being hit by a car, discovering a brain tumor, and other experiences that don't typically make you laugh.
1:01
Khalila McCoy: But here's the thing about Amanda.
1:04
Khalila McCoy: She has decided that no matter what comes her way, she is going to live fully, laugh deeply, and help anyone she can along the journey.
1:13
Khalila McCoy: She carries her story with such humor and compassion that you can't help but feel lighter just listening to her.
1:19
Khalila McCoy: Her joy is contagious.
1:22
Khalila McCoy: Her resilience inspiring.
1:24
Khalila McCoy: And her perspective will definitely put a smile on your face.
1:28
Khalila McCoy: If you're someone who needs to remember that your story is still unfolding and is still beautiful, this episode is dedicated to you.
1:39
Khalila McCoy: Amanda, welcome to the show.
1:44
Khalila McCoy: Hi, happy to be here.
1:46
Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I'm so excited for you to be here.
1:48
Khalila McCoy: We've been talking a little bit already, and I already told you I think you should be an actress, and you told me you were.
1:53
Khalila McCoy: You've been sharing a little bit about law school.
1:55
Khalila McCoy: So I cannot wait to hear all of the things that you have to share with us today.
2:01
Khalila McCoy: And you've lived through many, many experiences and some that could have taken you out literally.
2:08
Khalila McCoy: But you're here and you're a fighter.
2:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I survived.
2:13
Khalila McCoy: Yes.
2:13
Khalila McCoy: And before we get into that though, I want you to share with us why do you feel it's important to share your story?
2:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my gosh, because I've been through so much.
2:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And you know what?
2:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Sounds crazy, but I know everyone has their own pieces of trauma, has their own difficulties, and has their own dreams too.
2:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I think that my stories are a really great way to give people inspiration to believe no matter what it is that they're going through, you can achieve still.
2:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You can still have success and you can still keep going.
2:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And if you can see it working for other people, then there's a part of you that can believe it'll work for you too.
2:52
Khalila McCoy: Right.
2:53
Khalila McCoy: That's very true.
2:54
Khalila McCoy: So you're kind of leading by example.
2:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh, I guess that's a great way to put it.
2:59
Khalila McCoy: Yes, yeah.
2:59
Khalila McCoy: And I like too, like you said, your story is not perfect and polished because whose story truly is?
3:04
Khalila McCoy: So you have so many layers that everybody can relate to.
3:08
Khalila McCoy: So let's dive in.
3:10
Khalila McCoy: Let's go all the way back to your childhood to young Amanda.
3:14
Khalila McCoy: Tell us what she was like and then what life was like for you at that time.
3:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God, it's so funny because I'm so silly now.
3:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Young Amanda was emo gossip.
3:24
Khalila McCoy: Really?
3:24
Khalila McCoy: Okay, I would not have guessed that.
3:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God, yes.
3:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's because I grew up in an abusive home.
3:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I grew up with a um biological father who was a drug addict and he was homeless and he was in and out of jail.
3:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I remember when he called me once and he was like, Amanda, you have a and he called me from jail.
3:45
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
3:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He was like, Amanda, you have a, I think it was a sister because he got a prostitute pregnant.
3:51
Khalila McCoy: Oh my goodness.
3:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
3:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh no, poor man.
3:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You know what?
3:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I have empathy for him.
3:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
3:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um I don't hold I the the forgiveness has happened.
4:03
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
4:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I share his story not to okay, it's a little bit to laugh because you know, it is crazy.
4:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But uh, but you know what?
4:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I have I have empathy and I have forgiven him.
4:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um but that was my biological father.
4:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: My stepfather, he was the verbally and physically abusive per person who would, you know, like choke me, kick me in the ribs, punch me, um, punch the walls, those types of things.
4:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And uh he's the one I haven't forgiven yet, okay?
4:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because that was a crazy way to grow up.
4:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
4:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, so that was my childhood.
4:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: My childhood was absolute, utter insanity, but you know what?
4:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It taught me to believe.
4:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: When I talk about, you know, believing that other things are possible.
4:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I did that my whole childhood.
4:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like it was really, really difficult, which is why it was goth and emo, because it was it was killing me inside.
5:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But there was this little voice that said, Amanda, just keep going.
5:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And that's what made me valedictorian of my my high school.
5:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's what got me congressional nominations to three of our military academies.
5:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That's what got me a full-like scholarship into Johns Hopkins University, which is where I went, because I said, Amanda, if you work hard, if you get educated, then those are things that can give you a pathway out.
5:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And most people who grow up in Baltimore City don't leave.
5:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They stay trapped.
5:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I said, Amanda, you're not you're not gonna be the one that's gonna stay trapped.
5:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You're gonna work your butt off and it's gonna get you out.
5:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And guess what?
5:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It did.
5:36
Khalila McCoy: Wow.
5:37
Khalila McCoy: I love that self-talk.
5:39
Khalila McCoy: That is amazing.
5:40
Khalila McCoy: So when you were going through, so your biological father, and then your stepfather stepped into your life.
5:48
Khalila McCoy: What age were you when he entered the scene?
5:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my gosh.
5:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I think I was like five, maybe.
5:55
Khalila McCoy: I remember Okay, so it was pretty early.
5:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was very early.
5:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was in elementary school.
6:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, it was very, very early on.
6:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So he was my I mean, I called him dad.
6:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Mm-hmm.
6:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
6:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I remember when my mom finally decided to go through um divorce and it made him start threatening to kill me and her.
6:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um he stopped acknowledging that he was my dad.
6:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I grew up calling him dad.
6:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And when we they went through the divorce proceeding in court, he was like, You can just give her the kids that are not mine.
6:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was utter insanity.
6:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But that's I mean, that's a that's an abusive home.
6:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So Right.
6:38
Khalila McCoy: How many kids were or how many siblings do you have that were living with you?
6:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I have I have one older brother and then I have two younger brothers, and the two younger brothers were his.
6:48
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
6:49
Khalila McCoy: Were they all experiencing the same type of abuse?
6:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: My older brother was.
6:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But he what is that called when you it was like Beauty and the Beast, where she was getting treated poorly.
7:01
Khalila McCoy: Like Stackholm syndrome.
7:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, my older brother has that.
7:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He completely stopped talking to me and my mom and only talks to the stepdad that beat him is insane.
7:13
Khalila McCoy: That's interesting.
7:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, it's crazy.
7:16
Khalila McCoy: So has that, I'm assuming, affected your relationship or like how you see him, or is it more just like you're you feel bad for him?
7:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So a big part of my life has been cutting off traumatic um uh pieces and people and containing my joy and my peace.
7:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I actually don't I don't talk to my older brother.
7:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I barely talk to my younger brothers, if at all, because they they got a lot of um that kind of uh way of being stuck inside of them and they behave almost in this repetitive way where they're repeating the type of things that he did in our house.
7:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm like, I don't want that in my life anymore.
7:58
Khalila McCoy: No, good for you.
7:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, so I cut off almost my entire family.
8:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Really, the only people that I talk to from my family is my mom.
8:06
Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
8:06
Khalila McCoy: Is she still healing from that too?
8:08
Khalila McCoy: I'm assuming.
8:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's healed so much.
8:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my god, I'm gonna work her.
8:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, she went to therapy and it worked.
8:18
Khalila McCoy: Did you guys kind of go through that journey together, or do you feel like you started yours sooner than her?
8:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I mean, I think I started mine sooner.
8:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I I really think I did.
8:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But she she went to therapy and she she now she tells me some of the things that worked for her in therapy and it it helps me grow.
8:37
Khalila McCoy: Okay, good.
8:38
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
8:38
Khalila McCoy: So you guys kind of have that together and you're not alone in that experience, like you said, because your brothers are completely seeing it a different way.
8:47
Khalila McCoy: So that's kind of nice that you at least have your mom to talk through that stuff with.
8:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, and my husband.
8:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: My husband, I I met when I was 19.
8:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
8:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And we got married when I was 21.
8:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And he he grew up in a completely different family.
9:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He grew up in a beautiful um family that had just everyone in it was married without ever getting a divorce.
9:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They're all they all grew up in healthy homes.
9:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They all they all went to like Johns Hopkins, Harvard, like it's complete and utter opposite of the family that I grew up in.
9:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But he is so healthy, not just outside, but on the inside, that he was like a really great teacher to me.
9:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And he's a big part of why I've healed and I've grown too.
9:39
Khalila McCoy: Was that hard at first, like understanding those differences and why, you know, he probably moved differently or thought differently than you did because he grew up in that healthy environment.
9:48
Khalila McCoy: Was that hard for you guys to kind of understand each other at first?
9:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
9:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: This is so embarrassing, but you know what?
9:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I don't hide anything.
9:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: There was a point in time when I was scared that he would leave me because I was so broken, right?
10:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
10:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I was jealous of the way that he was.
10:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I literally had to have a conversation inside of myself and say, Amanda, release your ego.
10:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because your ego is gonna hold you back and it's it's not gonna move you forward.
10:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So if he's better than you in some ways, you need to release it.
10:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: If um you're scared that he's going to break up with you because you're so broken, release it and just trust him.
10:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I I literally had that internal talk, and it has been a million times better ever since.
10:43
Khalila McCoy: Good.
10:43
Khalila McCoy: I like that.
10:44
Khalila McCoy: And I don't think that's embarrassing at all.
10:46
Khalila McCoy: I actually had um an interview with a woman who was in the um foster care system.
10:52
Khalila McCoy: And she kind of talked about that too.
10:54
Khalila McCoy: She had a very bad experience.
10:55
Khalila McCoy: And she talked about how like certain, you know, trauma and chaos, it becomes normal and it becomes like what you just expect of life.
11:04
Khalila McCoy: So then when you're removed out of that situation, it's like a culture shock.
11:07
Khalila McCoy: And she talked about how, you know, when she was in a calm home, she was like, Why is nobody yelling?
11:13
Khalila McCoy: Why is nobody fighting?
11:14
Khalila McCoy: Like, what's wrong here?
11:15
Khalila McCoy: Right.
11:16
Khalila McCoy: Like, because she was so used to that, she couldn't necessarily, it took a big adjustment period.
11:21
Khalila McCoy: So I feel like you're in that same space.
11:24
Khalila McCoy: And like we talked about, I'm sure other people are too.
11:26
Khalila McCoy: So embarrassed.
11:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So the love will heal you, the love will take you to a complete and utter opposite side of that crazy violence life that you were in, the traumatic life that you're in.
11:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And it sounds beautiful, but it also takes this time for you to get used to it.
11:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so if you're going through trauma, just know you might have this transition period that makes it hard, but it is so worth it because the opposite side is just amazing.
11:55
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
11:55
Khalila McCoy: When you say the love will heal you, were you looking for a love, or did it just kind of happen and you're like, oh, this is this is kind of nice?
12:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh, well, I mean, there was this part of me that wanted to move on and wanted to accomplish a different form of life.
12:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like I said, I grew up in this um chaos.
12:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And there was this part of me that was saying, Amanda, believe in yourself.
12:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I I believe in myself.
12:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I know I can, I know I can move past this.
12:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I know I want something more beautiful, and I wanted a beautiful family.
12:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because I grew up in a hard family.
12:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I so I was like, if when you get married, when you have kids, you want to give them something completely and utterly different.
12:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I wanted love.
12:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And yet at the same time, I did not expect to get it at age 19.
12:46
Khalila McCoy: Right.
12:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
12:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I found it because I was at a fraternity party.
12:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I was gonna say, how did you guys meet?
12:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: We met at a fraternity party when I was 19 and drinking underage.
12:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He saw me and he liked how I looked.
13:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay, girl.
13:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: All right.
13:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So he came over and then I liked how he looked.
13:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So um, yes, we started talking, and I swear to God, for both of us, it was like everything else in the room was not there.
13:23
Khalila McCoy: Oh, I love that.
13:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was that cliche sort of love beginning that you see on TV.
13:30
Khalila McCoy: With the motion, did you run towards each other and the music played?
13:34
Khalila McCoy: Yes.
13:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, so we started talking and it was like no one else was in the room, and we just really liked each other.
13:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But this man, okay, he did not ask me for my number because he was too scared.
13:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He was too nervous.
13:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But then guess what?
13:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Two weeks later, we both go to the same fraternity party yet again.
13:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And the same thing happens, and I was not risking him not asking for my number.
14:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I gave him mine without having to ask yet.
14:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then after the party, he starts texting me and he was asking to go um to take me on a date, and he kept asking over and over because at this point I was still sort of um, I was still feeling fear and trauma that was like, right, I'm 19, I'm not over this stuff yet, right?
14:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I made it, I made me hard to get.
14:26
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
14:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I made me hard to get.
14:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so he had to ask me for dates over and over and over again.
14:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He was like, You want to do football Sunday?
14:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I was like, no, do you want to do and he kept I don't know, he kept asking different things.
14:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then finally we was like, okay, I'll come over and I'll cook you dinner.
14:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I said, ooh, that's interesting.
14:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm gonna make it hard and not tell him what I like to eat because there's very little that I like to eat.
14:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And guess what?
14:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He came over and he cooked me chicken teriyaki.
14:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh which was my favorite meal, and I never told him.
14:57
Khalila McCoy: Wow.
14:58
Khalila McCoy: Right?
14:59
Khalila McCoy: Okay, so meant to be.
15:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes, very meant to be.
15:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: After that date was over, he told me he was going to his housewarming party because he already owned a house.
15:10
Khalila McCoy: Okay, wow.
15:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right?
15:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, he grew up very privileged.
15:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, yes.
15:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I said, Okay, I'll come.
15:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He didn't even offer.
15:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I was like, okay, I'll come.
15:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, on the way to his party, we were in the car, and I I'm like, you know what?
15:26
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm just gonna drop it.
15:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna tell him right away, I have a child.
15:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because I already had a child at 18.
15:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
15:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And he was like, I was it was so scary.
15:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But he was like, okay, I love kids.
15:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So he basically raised my child.
15:44
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
15:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
15:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was crazy.
15:47
Khalila McCoy: That's yeah, because that is scary.
15:49
Khalila McCoy: And I it's I know like what you mean, like you want to get it out now, because like if he's gonna leave, like I wanna because you probably had that feeling, okay, this is great, this is perfect.
15:56
Khalila McCoy: So if you're gonna leave, I want you to know now.
15:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So Yeah, but he responded in this really beautiful way and then literally raised the child with me.
16:04
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
16:05
Khalila McCoy: So how long did you wait till he met your child?
16:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I think it was a couple weeks in, but I I remember the I remember when it happened because he we were watching him play tennis because look, he grew up privileged, so of course he played tennis.
16:23
Khalila McCoy: Okay, yeah, tennis.
16:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um at the club.
16:26
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um so we were watching him play tennis, and my mom's I have two moms, had to come and uh drop off my son.
16:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because, you know, when you have a baby that young, you need help.
16:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You're not gonna be able to do it all on your own.
16:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So he was half raised with my mom's.
16:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, and she came and dropped the baby off, but they were my moms were there right as he was coming in, and I tried to kiss him, and his face went like mortified because he didn't think it was, he was like, Oh my god, you don't kiss me in front of your mom's.
17:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like, I need to meet them first.
17:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And he right, and I the house that I grew up in, you don't hide those things.
17:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You just you do crazy, crazy stuff.
17:20
Khalila McCoy: That's so funny.
17:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Polite enough, you know.
17:24
Khalila McCoy: Right is proper.
17:25
Khalila McCoy: Do you feel like you have become more proper and stuff as you guys have been together and he's been more relaxed?
17:34
Khalila McCoy: So you guys kind of balancing each other out a little bit.
17:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: A hundred percent.
17:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes, we nailed it.
17:42
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
17:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I opened him up and he made me more professional.
17:47
Khalila McCoy: Yes, yeah.
17:48
Khalila McCoy: Hey, that's that's what you're supposed to do, right?
17:50
Khalila McCoy: When you find the right person, you guys help each other grow.
17:53
Khalila McCoy: So that's a really Oh my god, yes.
17:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That is like the name of our relationship.
17:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It is growth.
17:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: We literally, oh my gosh, I w here, I have my phone near me.
18:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I'm gonna take a look because oh, you know what it was?
18:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He is out on a um uh a business trip right now.
18:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And he texted me and he said he absolutely hates it.
18:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I texted him, you know what, it's okay because you're learning something that you don't like.
18:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so now that you have this lesson, you can use it to to grow and to do something different in the future.
18:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And literally, the moment that I sent that, he sent me a text saying it's okay, I'm just gonna use it to learn.
18:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: We said the same exact thing.
18:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Same thing, yeah.
18:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: At the same time, and it was because we're really boring growth people.
18:43
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
18:44
Khalila McCoy: No, I think the world needs more boring growth people.
18:49
Khalila McCoy: Perfect.
18:50
Khalila McCoy: I'm gonna start describing people.
18:52
Khalila McCoy: Like, are you a boring growth person?
18:54
Khalila McCoy: If you're not, I don't know if we can be friends.
18:57
Khalila McCoy: So you guys met at a young age, you guys are dating, things are going well.
19:05
Khalila McCoy: So tell us about kind of where that leads you.
19:08
Khalila McCoy: I know you talked about having a car accident.
19:12
Khalila McCoy: Is that with him or is that before?
19:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That was technically before.
19:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That was when I was 18.
19:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I walked across the street.
19:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: This was right before going to college.
19:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I went to college learning how to walk again.
19:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, so the summer before college, I was walking across the street right after getting my my uh braces off.
19:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I was so excited.
19:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my gosh.
19:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then as I'm walking across the street, an 80-year-old man driving his minivan at like 50 miles an hour hits me in my leg, my head shatters his windshield, and then I fly into the intersection about a foot away from being crushed by an 18-wheeler.
19:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And luckily or by some miracle of God, I don't know, there was a um a uh what is that called?
20:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Someone who does emergency services and EMT.
20:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And EMT was off duty in the tr in the um street right across from it.
20:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And he he stops his car, he cross he like makes it so that no one else can cross the street.
20:17
Khalila McCoy: Right.
20:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then he comes over and he starts treating me and he calls in everything that I'm gonna need.
20:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then obviously the yes, I know it's crazy, right?
20:27
Khalila McCoy: That's amazing.
20:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Unbelievable.
20:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I remember too when I wa my eyes were closed, my my body felt like it was completely and utterly numb, except for my my my neck all the way up to my head.
20:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That was all I could feel.
20:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I remember when it was all darkness, there was someone praying over top of me.
20:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Wow.
20:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, it was insane.
20:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then um they take me to the to shock trauma.
20:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm there for about a week.
20:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I almost die.
20:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, I had to get a rod on my femur, and I had to learn how to walk again.
21:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I remember being so scared because I was like, I can't not go to college because then I won't get out.
21:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I can't, this can't trap me.
21:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It can't trap me.
21:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So Johns Hopkins said if I needed to defer a year that I could do it.
21:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I said, no, I'm gonna go onto campus even when I can't walk.
21:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And luckily, when I met my husband, he works in fitness and tennis, and he can he trained me how to run again.
21:32
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
21:32
Khalila McCoy: Oh my goodness.
21:33
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
21:34
Khalila McCoy: So neat.
21:35
Khalila McCoy: Like everything is just lining up.
21:37
Khalila McCoy: I love that.
21:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
21:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Well, I mean, the universe had to line me up for my love.
21:41
Khalila McCoy: So Yes, yeah.
21:43
Khalila McCoy: I mean, I hate that you had to go through that to get there, but it's amazing how, again, that voice, right?
21:49
Khalila McCoy: You were like, I'm not gonna let this stop me.
21:52
Khalila McCoy: I'm going to keep pushing through this because it that's that's an easy place of like, okay, I'm having a great day, I got my braces off.
21:59
Khalila McCoy: And then somebody hits me, right?
22:01
Khalila McCoy: To feel sorry for yourself to just be down.
22:04
Khalila McCoy: And I'm sure you had those moments, but to fight through that, I'm sure the therapy that you had to go with, like the physical therapy of learning to walk again, I'm assuming that was pretty difficult.
22:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was all just insanely difficult and very, very painful, as you can imagine.
22:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like the femur is the most painful break to make in your entire body.
22:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It hurt so bad.
22:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And when the the nerves were starting to work again, I would scream and I would scream and I would scream because it was so insanely painful.
22:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um and it was sad because it was like I worked so hard to get into Johns Hopkins and the and the world had to give me another piece of trauma, another challenge.
22:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Why can't it let me just move on?
22:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was hard.
22:49
Khalila McCoy: You mentioned you almost died.
22:51
Khalila McCoy: What happened?
22:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Well, um, it was really close to my femoral artery, and if you if your femoral artery gets broken, you literally die.
23:01
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
23:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then you my head being a foot away from the passing 18-wheeler, I almost died.
23:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So there were multiple ways of near-death experiences.
23:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
23:11
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
23:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That was only near-death experience number one, though.
23:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Life kept throwing little ones my way.
23:17
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
23:17
Khalila McCoy: So go ahead, tell us what's number two.
23:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh, number two is recent.
23:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So um skipping over a bunch of other parts of my life, um, which I'm sure we'll talk about, because there there were a there was a lot that went into growing to near-death experience number two.
23:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But more recently, I found out I had a brain tumor and I apparently had it my entire life.
23:39
Khalila McCoy: Wow.
23:39
Khalila McCoy: Yes.
23:40
Khalila McCoy: And you just found out recently.
23:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I just found out recently.
23:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And it was because I was smelling things that weren't there.
23:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Which sounds crazy, okay.
23:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But apparently it was a seizure.
23:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Seizures are not just tonic clonic, where you're like, your whole body is shaking, which I think TV has made us all think those are the only seizures, but they're not.
24:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, so I would smell things that weren't there, and that's how it started.
24:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then they got So give us an example.
24:10
Khalila McCoy: Like you were like, oh, do you guys smell that?
24:12
Khalila McCoy: And everybody else would be like, no.
24:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It smells almost like um like a a dead body.
24:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like it smells terrible.
24:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, it smells really, really, really bad.
24:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But then eventually they got so bad that I would feel my heart almost like it's going into a heart attack.
24:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I would um stop talking.
24:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I would stop being able to respond.
24:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I would um, I don't know, my my whole body would feel like it's burning and like it was on fire.
24:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so they would just keep getting worse.
24:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I kept a diary of it.
24:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I gave the diary to my doctor.
24:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's like, Amanda, I think you're having seizures.
24:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Let's get you an MRI, which apparently I did not know this either, okay?
24:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You could go to the hospital, you could go to your doctor with so many problems, which I had over the course of my life, which we now know are from the tumor, but I was never given an MRI until I was, what am I, how old am I now?
25:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: 34.
25:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, so it's this rare request, get an MRI.
25:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And uh they it showed and my doctor called me the same day right after, and I was like, okay, I know there was something on it because she called me this fast.
25:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Doctors can't do that unless there's something on it.
25:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And you could tell that it was something wrong because she the way that she was talking, it was like she was scared to tell me.
25:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I was like, come on, just tell me, just tell me.
25:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's like, You have a brain tumor.
25:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I was like, okay, what's next?
25:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like I responded so calmly.
25:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's like, Amanda, are you okay?
25:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm like, Yeah, it's it's fine.
25:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm so used to crazy stuff.
25:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: What do we do?
25:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's like, We need to talk to a neurosurgeon because you might need to have brain surgery.
25:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I was like, okay, who what who do you want me to contact?
25:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's like, I'll refer you.
25:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm like, okay.
25:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She's like, she she was so shocked at how calm I responded.
26:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But when you go through so much insanity in life, you become a freaking fighter.
26:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You become a warrior.
26:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And it's like, it does not matter what comes my way.
26:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I am going to, I'm gonna be fine at this point.
26:12
Khalila McCoy: What else can I bring?
26:13
Khalila McCoy: I got this.
26:14
Khalila McCoy: So when you I don't even know.
26:21
Khalila McCoy: Like, so this process of going through the tumor and things like that, was it a quick like get in that they were able to remove the tumor, and then now you're kind of just recovering from it, or was there complications within that part as well?
26:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God, it was utter insanity.
26:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I mean, I would hope that literally just by saying I got part of my brain removed, people would be like, oh my God, that had to have been insane because yes, it was insane.
26:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
26:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So first they had to do a what's called fMRI, which is also insanely rare.
26:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And they mainly only do it before um getting brain surgery.
27:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And basically what it is, is they give me tests while they're looking at my brain.
27:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And the reason why they do it is because they want to know what what what your brain is doing and the neuropathways that are working so that they don't accidentally remove a part of your brain that you are using for speaking, for memory, for um other types of communication ways of thinking, speaking foreign languages.
27:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I speak Mandarin Chinese and I speak Russian.
27:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I had to do the test in three different languages.
27:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um they use that so that when they're going through the brain surgery, they can actually have uh those pieces next to them and not accidentally remove neuropathways that I need.
27:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I did that.
27:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Then um they obviously put me down under anesthetics.
27:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Not all brain surgeries are done that way, but they couldn't keep me awake because if I have a seizure in the middle of brain surgery, it's not good.
28:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So and I was like, man, I want to see the surgery.
28:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Look, it sounds so cool.
28:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But all right, fine, I'll go to sleep.
28:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then took out um my uh what is it called?
28:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um temporal.
28:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, it was a temporal lobe, yeah.
28:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, thank you.
28:26
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Temporal lobe.
28:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So this is this is an example, okay?
28:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, temporal lobe um goes into the hippocampus and it goes into the the um the amygdala.
28:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um and it controls memory.
28:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so I will forget things often because it goes into that area and that it couldn't, they couldn't get all of it out because otherwise I would be forgetting like my life.
28:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And the amygdala would make me just ungodly scared for the rest of my life or like mess me up.
28:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So they took out as much as they could, but they couldn't get it all out, or it would have just gone too far in the parts of my brain that that I really needed.
29:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So so I still have it, and I'm technically getting checked every 90 days for my um uh for the growth of the tumor because it has been growing until literally yesterday.
29:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
29:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
29:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I went to the oncologist and they told me, Amanda, this is the first time a year since surgery, there's no growth.
29:30
Khalila McCoy: Congratulations.
29:31
Khalila McCoy: That's awesome.
29:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
29:34
Khalila McCoy: Good.
29:35
Khalila McCoy: Oh my goodness, that makes me so happy.
29:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
29:39
Khalila McCoy: So you're still gonna go every month, I mean every 90 days to make sure, but like that's huge that it's not growing anymore.
29:46
Khalila McCoy: And it's I'm sure it's a lot smaller than when you first started, right?
29:51
Khalila McCoy: It's not growing, it's not near to the size it was.
29:54
Khalila McCoy: Was it pretty large since you had it your whole life?
29:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I mean, I I it's hard to say whether it was large or not because I'm not a I'm not a neurosurgeon.
30:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I mean, the the other thing is that it's technically a sec uh, what is this?
30:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: A primary brain tumor, a primary brain tumor, which means it's growing, it started out in the brain and it was growing in the brain rather than one that's like a secondary one where it was like a br like a breast cancer and then it moved up to the brain.
30:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It wasn't that.
30:26
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
30:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It also is um one of the rarest types of brain tumors ever that exists.
30:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So 1% of the world gets brain tumors, right?
30:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
30:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: 1% of that 1% gets the one that I have.
30:39
Khalila McCoy: It's the one that you have.
30:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm not even kidding.
30:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And they're usually like 13-year-old boys.
30:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So that's really rare.
30:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm not even the rarest type of thing ever.
30:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They literally had me under three different um studies because mine is so rare.
30:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They're like, if you let me study you, it can help.
30:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I was like, okay, perfect.
30:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You have to me however you would like.
31:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, which I I'm just happy that they're doing that because I'm I'm happy to help change the world, even if it's in even even if it's like in that way.
31:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I want other people to be able to to benefit and and not deal with as much brain cancer in the world.
31:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And if it means they they actually took parts of my brain and instead of just leaving it in like a freezer, I was like, go and take it and use it for studies.
31:26
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
31:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So it's really cool.
31:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But um, no, the type of tumor I have is one of the least growing ones.
31:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And that's why it took me until 34 to figure out that I had it.
31:38
Khalila McCoy: Right.
31:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
31:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my god.
31:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So you weren't.
31:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But you know what?
31:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay, the other rare thing that happened is after the surgery, I go through like physical recovery where it's it's a it's really painful and I had to like fight through the pain.
31:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But then guess what?
31:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my god, I had temporal lobectomy syndrome, which is like psychosis.
31:58
Khalila McCoy: Oh wow.
31:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.
32:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
32:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I I like I'm telling you, I was in heaven, I was in multiverses, and there was a period of time where my body, my soul, was flying through multiverse to multiverse to multiverse to multiverse to find my husband.
32:19
Khalila McCoy: Wow.
32:20
Khalila McCoy: How do you process all of that?
32:23
Khalila McCoy: Like, how did you come to the point where you're like, okay, I'm back to me and my body here on Earth?
32:29
Khalila McCoy: And like, what did you go through?
32:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I had to go into the psychological ER.
32:36
Khalila McCoy: Uh-huh.
32:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um they adjusted my medication.
32:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And they were with me as I was going through it to make sure I didn't like accidentally kill myself or kill other people or do anything crazy because it is so strong.
32:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It can, it makes it really, really hard to function in general.
33:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And it makes you it makes you kind of dangerous.
33:03
Khalila McCoy: How long did you have to deal with that?
33:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: About a year.
33:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Uh not a year, sorry, a month.
33:08
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
33:08
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
33:08
Khalila McCoy: It's still a pretty long time.
33:10
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
33:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was a long time.
33:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God.
33:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's definitely I think that was partially the hardest thing I've ever gone through because it's really hard to be like, what's real?
33:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: What's not?
33:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Is my husband real?
33:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Are they all watching me?
33:22
Khalila McCoy: Is it did you told you told somebody this was happening to you?
33:26
Khalila McCoy: Is that how they knew?
33:27
Khalila McCoy: Or it was like by the way you were acting, people were like, hey, let's check this out to make sure.
33:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I I was very honest as soon as it started happening.
33:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I actually called my best friend and I told her about it.
33:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um she actually has an aunt who went through schizophrenia.
33:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so she told me, Amanda, you are real.
33:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Your husband is real, this world is real, yeah, you can do this.
33:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And she was, and she was just a strong voice that helps me get through.
34:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then I told my my in-laws, we literally live right next door to my mother and father-in-law.
34:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
34:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And my psychosis did what a lot of people have said happens, where it was like, I'm being watched.
34:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I told them, I said, I don't believe you're watching me.
34:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But something is telling me you are.
34:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I am scared.
34:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And they helped take care of me because they're my family.
34:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And and um I think I'm at a different point in my life than where I started in that I actually have a support system.
34:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But when I started off life, I was in an abusive home.
34:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And guess what?
34:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I've grown so much that I'm in like a loving, caring one that that treats that that that is a support system I have in life, no matter what I'm going through.
34:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I did a complete and utter 180 in my life.
34:51
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
34:51
Khalila McCoy: That's awesome.
34:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That means anyone can.
34:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: If you're listening and you've got a crazy life, you've got trauma, guess what?
34:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You can get that 180.
35:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm proof.
35:02
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
35:02
Khalila McCoy: You are in law school right now.
35:06
Khalila McCoy: And you talked about with the brain surgery, like the potential of memory loss and things like that.
35:12
Khalila McCoy: So do you feel like you are working a little bit extra, like extra hard in law school right now?
35:18
Khalila McCoy: Can you tell the difference in how you learn and retain information?
35:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God, yes.
35:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: No, my memory is poo-poo.
35:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So um, I'm having a hard time retaining the information that's being taught.
35:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And it means that I have to I have to do things that I think a lot of other people don't.
35:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, and I have to work harder than I think a lot of people have to.
35:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um I I don't know if you guys know this, but in law school we talk a lot about outlines.
35:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like, you have to make outlines.
35:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You have to make outlines.
35:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm like, yes, I need to make an outline.
35:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I have to do it in a special way.
35:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then I have to like, I have to do what my child in elementary school does.
35:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
35:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He's in fifth grade, and his teachers are like, Here, you have to do five different things in order, five different ways of studying in before your test.
36:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then they literally send home like this paper that we, the parents, have to check off the boxes to to prove that he did five different ways of studying.
36:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And one of them is like um postcards, like write things down on postcards and then use them as like flip, flip things that you learn that way.
36:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: One is teaching other people, as if you teach, then you learn through the teaching.
36:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: One is um God, what else is it?
36:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um they they have they have like five different ways of learning, five different ways of studying.
36:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm using his list to help you.
36:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: To help me.
36:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I'm in elementary school and law school all at the same time.
36:55
Khalila McCoy: I bet that's fun for him.
36:56
Khalila McCoy: Do you let him check off your list and be like, mom, you didn't do number four?
37:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God, that's such a good idea.
37:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Not yet, but I will now.
37:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
37:07
Khalila McCoy: That's so neat.
37:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
37:10
Khalila McCoy: When you talk about like having to work harder, I'm sure there's some days like talking to you now, you're so joyful and so happy, but I'm sure you have hard days.
37:20
Khalila McCoy: What do those days look like for you?
37:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I mean, I think most of my days are really good because I've, I don't know, I've come so far with love, I've come so far far with support system, I've come so far with belief, um, and with medication, you know, that that really helps.
37:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: The medication has um turned off my seizures, it has turned off my psychosis, it has turned on my um my joy.
37:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like it's it's taken away the anxiety and the depression.
37:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um so between the medication and between like the the personal growth, my days are actually really beautiful.
38:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You know what else I think it is?
38:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I think it's that when you go through near death this many times, you learn to appreciate what you have.
38:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I appreciate that I'm living.
38:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I appreciate that I'm married in such a beautiful marriage.
38:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I appreciate that I have kids that I love and I have to be there for them.
38:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like I have a three-year-old and I I'm like, I need to keep living because she won't remember me if I'm gone.
38:31
Khalila McCoy: Yes.
38:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I need to keep going so that, you know, even if I do even if it does come back, let me like last long enough that she'll remember me when I'm gone.
38:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And that I will have given her such a beautiful childhood.
38:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So like these are things that I think during the day that keep me going in a joyful way.
38:50
Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
38:50
Khalila McCoy: What type of conversation?
38:53
Khalila McCoy: I know you have the three-year-old probably not as much, but since you said you had a fifth, fifth grade son, what type of conversations do you have with him about like things you've been through or are going through?
39:03
Khalila McCoy: Because I'm sure, you know, he sees things or hears things and that affects him as well.
39:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh, yeah.
39:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I've got a 16-year-old, an 11-year-old, and a three-year-old.
39:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: We really like those age gaps.
39:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
39:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um yeah, after the 11-year-old, we thought that we would be done.
39:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then I'm one of my best friends, I saw her have a baby and I was like, oh, you gave me baby fever.
39:27
Khalila McCoy: Yes.
39:27
Khalila McCoy: I know it's so hard.
39:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh, it is.
39:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Uh I had a hysterectomy though.
39:31
Khalila McCoy: So you're done now.
39:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes, sadly, sadly.
39:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, but in terms of how we talk to them, we actually talk to them in a growth way.
39:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, so that it is almost like asking questions that helps them come to the realizations rather than telling them, hey, don't think this way.
39:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: We might ask them, how do you feel like you should think about it?
39:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um I think that's made them really beautiful, beautiful people.
40:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, not just kids, but they're like very loving, good, good beings.
40:06
Khalila McCoy: Good.
40:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
40:08
Khalila McCoy: When you were going through just like your brain surgery, were they ever like, hey mom, we're really worried for you or we're scared.
40:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I mean, before going in, I recorded videos for them.
40:19
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I I recorded ones that were for each kid.
40:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Each kid got their own videos.
40:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I even recorded one for my three-year-old that was me singing kids' songs.
40:28
Khalila McCoy: Aw.
40:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I I told my husband, I was like, play this for her every night before bed.
40:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was really yeah, I loved it.
40:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, and I know that they were scared.
40:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, well, the the 11-year-old and the 16-year-old.
40:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um they my 16-year-old was old enough that the hospital let him come into the the room in the hospital.
40:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And you could tell just by looking at him that he was scared.
40:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, and the way that he talked to me, you could tell that he was scared.
40:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: My 11-year-old, I could tell when I came home from the hospital that he was scared.
41:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, but I don't know.
41:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, since coming out, they still treat me like I'm fine now.
41:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, no, they're still crazy.
41:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They're still normal kids now.
41:16
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
41:17
Khalila McCoy: I guess that's good.
41:20
Khalila McCoy: Things are going back.
41:21
Khalila McCoy: And you've taught them, right?
41:22
Khalila McCoy: To uh be positive and keep moving forward.
41:25
Khalila McCoy: So it's working.
41:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
41:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Highly recommended.
41:30
Khalila McCoy: So there's no like, oh, we're gonna make sure the house is super clean because mom had brain surgery.
41:35
Khalila McCoy: We're just kind of who we are.
41:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm working with them on the cleaning side.
41:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm not even yes, like for real, I'm working with them on the cleaning.
41:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They need that.
41:45
Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
41:46
Khalila McCoy: Now I know we skipped a big part you said because we went from near-death experience to near-death experience, and you said there was a lot in between that you wanted to share.
41:56
Khalila McCoy: So tell us about what happened in between that.
42:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I actually built a business that made millions um before leaving for law school.
42:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I actually paid about half a million dollars to close down that business in order to go to law school.
42:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Before law school, I was running a marketing agency.
42:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
42:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um I initially built it up after the the after Johns Hopkins.
42:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So when I was done at Johns Hopkins, I saw this woman.
42:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm I worked for her as a social media marketing and uh intern.
42:26
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And uh she was really big in the marketing world, and she worked with a lot of women.
42:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She worked predominantly with women uh female entrepreneurs.
42:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I would hear the way she talked to them, and it gave me inspiration.
42:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I was like, oh my God, it's possible to it's possible to live a good life, it's possible to make money.
42:46
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I grew up in a poor family.
42:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I was like, it's possible to make money, it's possible to be happy.
42:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's so I mean I think part of the lesson there is like what you do, just so you know, has a butterfly effect on other people.
42:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
43:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's so crazy.
43:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So she had a butterfly effect on me.
43:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I decided to model her.
43:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I quit the job and I started trying to do what she did.
43:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
43:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, initially it was really hard.
43:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Initially, like my first business failed.
43:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But then I was like, I'm not gonna quit, I'm gonna keep going.
43:16
Khalila McCoy: And I just business.
43:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: The first business, oh my God, it's so embarrassing, was a blog for fraternities and sororities to help them learn how to get people in the sorority and the fraternities.
43:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um I grew a lot of traffic, okay, but I didn't have anything to sell because I didn't think about that.
43:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I didn't think about the fact that if you're a business, you have to have an offer.
43:38
Khalila McCoy: Right.
43:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right?
43:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: A little embarrassing.
43:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But um once I realized that, okay, once I realized that, I started selling virtual assistant services where I was like doing social media marketing, I was project managing, I was doing administrative services, I was eventually getting into website development, graphic design, that type of stuff.
43:57
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I actually had something to sell.
43:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then I had already gotten good at running traffic.
44:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I started doing both.
44:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then I started making money.
44:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I made like $10,000 a month.
44:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I was like, oh my God, this is insane.
44:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It started completely changing my life.
44:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Cause once you start making money after growing up poor, it's like, oh my God, this is this is what life can be like.
44:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: This is crazy.
44:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I got better and better and better and better at it.
44:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I I literally ended up making millions.
44:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It was insane.
44:24
Khalila McCoy: That's awesome.
44:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But you know what happened was I realized money is not it's not everything in this world.
44:31
Khalila McCoy: True.
44:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I think that was something that I needed to learn because of the way that I grew up, I was like, oh my God, I'm I'm gonna love money.
44:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But actually what ended up happening is I felt burnt out and it started taking away from my family.
44:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
44:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um the other thing that I that I felt was that I wasn't making enough of a difference in the world because I saw the country, the country crumbling.
44:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I saw there was so much pain and so much violence and so much divisiveness happening in this world, and I was like, I'm not gonna change anything about all of these problems by running a marketing agency.
45:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
45:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And that was why I closed it down and I went into law school, not for money, but essentially for politics, because I'm I I'm gonna get into a realm that people think is evil, but I'm gonna do it in a way that is um, in my hopes, gonna make a difference.
45:25
Khalila McCoy: Right.
45:26
Khalila McCoy: That is so beautiful.
45:27
Khalila McCoy: I love that.
45:28
Khalila McCoy: Especially even you're thinking of like, yeah, I came from nothing.
45:31
Khalila McCoy: I'm making all this money.
45:33
Khalila McCoy: And then to have the realization that money isn't everything.
45:37
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
45:37
Khalila McCoy: And like you said, it it doesn't fulfill your purpose is I feel like essentially is what it is.
45:43
Khalila McCoy: Like you have the desire to help others.
45:45
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
45:46
Khalila McCoy: And even though even though you were, right, and I'm sure you made a difference in somebody's life at that point, you could tell that there was another level for you.
45:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes, a hundred percent.
45:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I would say my purpose in life is my family.
45:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Family is everything to me.
46:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And then my other purpose in life is to make a difference in the realm of divisiveness in the country, in the world.
46:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Really, I want peace.
46:10
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
46:10
Khalila McCoy: When you were at John Hopkins, what was your degree in?
46:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God.
46:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I started off as a neuroscience major and then I took chemistry.
46:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, chemistry was not my realm.
46:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
46:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like history, dance, and chemistry are my weakest area.
46:29
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, don't invite me to a party because I'm a bad dancer.
46:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um less it's sexual.
46:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I can do like sexual-oriented dancing.
46:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yep.
46:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: My husband loves that.
46:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, that's why I went to a fraternity in sorority when I met him.
46:43
Khalila McCoy: Right.
46:43
Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I was gonna say that makes sense.
46:45
Khalila McCoy: That's why he was checking you out.
46:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: There we go.
46:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay, anyway.
46:50
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I stopped my neuroscience major.
46:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I ended up graduating with three degrees: one in writing, one in East Asian studies, which is why I know Mandarin Chinese, and then one in Russian, which is why I know that language too.
47:03
Khalila McCoy: So, what were you originally thinking you would leave college and do with those degrees?
47:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, absolutely nothing.
47:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I had no idea whatsoever.
47:12
Khalila McCoy: It was just more like you were interested.
47:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I really liked languages.
47:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I remember when I was um in middle school, I was learning um French, and my French teacher, she loved me.
47:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: She'd be like, Amanda, someday you are going to be an ambassador.
47:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um, she wasn't she wasn't right, but she wasn't too wrong.
47:32
Khalila McCoy: Yeah, not too far off.
47:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
47:35
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
47:35
Khalila McCoy: That's really cool.
47:37
Khalila McCoy: And then in your, you know, with the law school and your goal of being in politics and stuff, you can still use those languages to connect with people that other people wouldn't be able to.
47:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: A hundred percent.
47:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, I think that's a really big deal when it comes to um politics, being able to, even if you can't speak the language, being to being able to identify that other people, other cultures, other um communities, they exist and they're not the same as yours, and that's okay.
48:05
Khalila McCoy: And that's okay.
48:05
Khalila McCoy: Yeah, we learn from each other and we grow and we take bits and pieces to help each other.
48:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, 100%.
48:12
Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I agree with you.
48:12
Khalila McCoy: I feel like unfortunately in our culture, we are missing that knowledge or we're ignoring it.
48:18
Khalila McCoy: I feel like it's been said, right?
48:19
Khalila McCoy: We know it, but for some reason or the other, you know, people are deciding like, nope, that doesn't matter.
48:25
Khalila McCoy: It's very um like that ego you talked about earlier.
48:29
Khalila McCoy: It's very me, me, me focused right now.
48:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, or it's heavily judgmental.
48:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um which I don't apply either.
48:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I think that adds to div to the divisiveness.
48:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: If uh if there if you acknowledge other cultures exist, but you acknowledge it in a judgmental way.
48:44
Khalila McCoy: True.
48:44
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
48:45
Khalila McCoy: It doesn't matter.
48:46
Khalila McCoy: So you talked about your ultimate goal is to get into politics.
48:52
Khalila McCoy: What like are you gonna run for mayor?
48:54
Khalila McCoy: What is your goal?
48:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I want to run for Congress.
48:57
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
49:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
49:00
Khalila McCoy: And why tell us why?
49:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Literally because of what I just described.
49:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I think that okay, honestly, I think it's utterly insane.
49:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Now that I know everything that I know from law school, I think it's utterly insane if anyone ever runs for politics without going to law school.
49:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because oh my God, so much that I know now, I'm like, oh my God, the statutes are gonna get so insanely broken if they are made by people who don't understand how they work and how they are going to end up influencing um the courts and the people.
49:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I there are two parties, right?
49:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: One party has way more people who go to law school first.
49:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I highly recommend going with that party because it, oh my God, it makes such a big difference.
49:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, there's literally one class in law school where it's called legislation and regulation.
49:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And the entire class is talking about how the statute is written and based on that, how it can influence um the courts.
50:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It it could literally come down to like a comma.
50:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Is a comma there?
50:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: What does the comma mean?
50:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes, right?
50:10
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's that that is how insane it is.
50:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so you could you could read a statute and be like, oh my God, this is so bad.
50:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: This is so bad for so many reasons.
50:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: This is gonna hurt the people in so many different ways.
50:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um it helps you to avoid those things if you if you um vote for someone who has actually been to law school.
50:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So that is one reason why I am there, and I think it was a really good, really, really good um choice that I did that.
50:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um but the other thing that I noticed is congressmen aren't just and just people in politics in general, they're not just doing their day work, they're also on video, they're also in speeches, and they're also writing to the public, right?
50:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so in that way, they're responsible for communication.
50:59
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And communication, I think how you do it influences the peace or the divisiveness that happens.
51:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Like if you're talking in a way that is going to make people scared, I think you've done a bad I you've done a bad job.
51:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: If you're talking in a way that's gonna make people angry, that's gonna make people fight, that's gonna cause protests, then I don't think you're doing a very good job.
51:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I think luckily, because I went through a marketing agency, I've spoken as a keynote speaker in about like 10 different conferences.
51:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I've learned a lot about communication.
51:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I mean, literally, even just a degree in writing.
51:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
51:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um even going into law.
51:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah, and law school helps you a lot with speaking as well, because you have to learn to speak in front of um a judge.
51:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You have to learn to speak in front of um uh a jury, right?
51:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um they even teach you how to speak in politics as well, right?
51:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Depending upon the classes that you take.
51:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
51:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And it forces you to get to and and it also teaches you both sides, which I think is important, yeah.
52:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's so important, right?
52:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Because the same is true when you are when you're voted in.
52:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You're not just you're not just um running for one party and then going into your job and only helping them.
52:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: No, you help all the people.
52:20
Khalila McCoy: Help everybody, yeah.
52:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Everybody.
52:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so why do I want to run?
52:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I want to run for those reasons.
52:25
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
52:26
Khalila McCoy: You have my vote.
52:28
Khalila McCoy: I like you.
52:29
Khalila McCoy: I like everything you've said.
52:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you very much.
52:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm gonna write statutes, okay?
52:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But don't hurt you.
52:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm gonna communicate in a way that makes you all feel loved, okay?
52:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And cared for and looked after, because that is what I'm going to be doing.
52:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm going to be taking care of all of you, even if you didn't vote for me, okay?
52:47
Khalila McCoy: Yes.
52:48
Khalila McCoy: Right.
52:48
Khalila McCoy: Yeah, it's not us first them, right?
52:51
Khalila McCoy: We're all in this together.
52:53
Khalila McCoy: I love that.
52:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
52:54
Khalila McCoy: So tell us, I'm, I don't know.
52:56
Khalila McCoy: I do stay away from politics.
52:58
Khalila McCoy: I know people don't always agree with that, but just because, like you said, the divisiveness, all of this stuff, I it's not something that it's does not bring me peace.
53:06
Khalila McCoy: So I have learned to, you know, stay away from certain things.
53:10
Khalila McCoy: But tell us uh what is the process?
53:12
Khalila McCoy: So you're in law school now, your your goal is Congress.
53:15
Khalila McCoy: What are the steps to get you there?
53:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So the first thing is I have to, I have to really focus on finishing law school and doing as good of a job in it as I possibly can.
53:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That one I think is pretty obvious.
53:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, then from there, I do think that I should practice um even just a year or two of law because when you're in law school, you learn a lot about what's called doctrinals, which is basically like the doctrine of law.
53:40
Amanda Goodman-Petri: To be able to see what the cases are like, to be able to see what the statute are like, to be able to see what the constitution is like and understand how you would turn it into an argument.
53:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, but that's very different than actually going into the practice of law and being able to experience how it works in a courtroom, right?
53:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I do want to experience it in practice.
54:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I do want to know what it is like in the actual court.
54:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um so I'm gonna do about a year or two of those.
54:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um and then I um I'm gonna sound utterly insane here in a second.
54:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um something I might, might do beforehand.
54:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God.
54:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That sounds so crazy.
54:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, I might go to medical school after that.
54:27
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Wait, what?
54:32
Khalila McCoy: Please tell me more.
54:34
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay, because here's the thing, right?
54:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Once you run for Congress, okay, you end up being in it for the rest of your life.
54:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
54:43
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Or eventually you go out of practice or what you go eventually out of office, right?
54:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
54:49
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But you're still gonna end up being in politics in some way.
54:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's almost impossible to end your your office there and then go into literally anything else.
54:58
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You're in politics for the rest of your life.
55:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And there I've always thought about going to medical school.
55:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm like, okay, I don't want this to hold me back in office.
55:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
55:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I want to finish as much as possible beforehand.
55:12
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That way when I go in, there's no distractions whatsoever.
55:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
55:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But the other thing too is I think that you get to know the medical realm.
55:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I my my two most important things that I love that I want to go into uh how I vote for things in office, the things that I push for in office is education and health.
55:36
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Okay.
55:37
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
55:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So I'm I'm getting a lot out of education because I literally have five degrees already.
55:43
Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
55:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I didn't even finish telling, I also have a degree in sociology and I have a degree in criminology.
55:48
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um and I'm about to have a degree in um law, and then that would give me a degree in um medicine.
55:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Even without a degree in medicine, like I've done so much in education.
55:58
Khalila McCoy: Yes, you're so multifaceted.
56:00
Khalila McCoy: That's amazing.
56:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
56:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
56:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, so I already have so much experience in education that I would do a really good job in office, being able to help further that for other people.
56:11
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, but health, besides the fact that I've had really bad health for a while, um, I'd love to know more about health and order and in particular how hospitals work um in order to do a better job when I am in office.
56:25
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
56:26
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And to be able to get money for those places while I am in office.
56:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um, and so it's partially to remove um any distractions and it's also partially to give me more information that makes me a better person in office.
56:38
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So that's kind of like my my idea is finish law school, practice for a little while, probably go to medical school, um, and then start running.
56:48
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
56:49
Khalila McCoy: That's an awesome.
56:50
Khalila McCoy: I love that journey for you.
56:52
Khalila McCoy: I think that's perfect.
56:53
Khalila McCoy: And like you said, knowing the ins and outs of everything that you are fighting for.
57:00
Khalila McCoy: That's so important.
57:01
Khalila McCoy: Because it's not hearsay.
57:02
Khalila McCoy: It's not like, oh, I have a my brother who does this or something.
57:04
Khalila McCoy: Like, no, I was in this.
57:06
Khalila McCoy: I've even learned it and studied these things.
57:10
Khalila McCoy: And then this is how I'm bringing about change.
57:12
Khalila McCoy: Like, yes.
57:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my God.
57:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: This is so I applaud you.
57:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
57:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But um, the other reason that I want to the other reason I'm thinking about doing it this route, this is so sad to say, is because I'm a woman.
57:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Mm-hmm.
57:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So um I think it's harder for women to get um voted for um no matter which form of office they're trying to go into.
57:30
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um I I give myself a leg up being able to get in because I have so many credentials that it would be really hard for people to say no.
57:39
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
57:40
Khalila McCoy: And I mentioned this before, you have a great personality.
57:43
Khalila McCoy: So you can relate to people and talk to anybody, which is nice, and that will go far for you.
57:50
Khalila McCoy: So well, I am so excited.
57:51
Khalila McCoy: I cannot wait to start seeing your name.
57:53
Khalila McCoy: I mean, I know we have a while because of you know, law school and medical school and all that stuff, but I cannot wait to see Amanda up on there.
58:02
Khalila McCoy: So that's so exciting.
58:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
58:05
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I will I will come back and uh uh reach out when I'm when I'm less and I will remember you guys.
58:13
Khalila McCoy: Yes, remember us little people, our little podcast.
58:18
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Nah, you you you big, you awesome.
58:21
Khalila McCoy: Thank you.
58:22
Khalila McCoy: Um, what does your husband say about all your goals and dreams?
58:26
Khalila McCoy: I mean, I know he's he sounds wonderful.
58:27
Khalila McCoy: I'm sure he's supportive.
58:28
Khalila McCoy: What are his thoughts when you tell him all of this?
58:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Oh my gosh.
58:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: No, you know what?
58:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He had be asked that question in the course of my temporal lebectomy syndrome that was like psychosis, because you know when people go through psychosis, they have these like big thoughts, like the CIA is watching me, um, or something like that.
58:45
Amanda Goodman-Petri: They have these like really big thoughts, or they become grandeur and they like think the big thoughts that they have are about themselves.
58:53
Khalila McCoy: Okay.
58:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You know what I mean?
58:54
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
58:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so they had to ask my husband, and he and he was like, you know, I wouldn't be able to identify that because the reality is no matter what she tries, she'll be able to do it.
59:04
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And she could say anything, and I would believe in her.
59:07
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
59:07
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That was that was how he responded to the doctors asking him that question, and that's how he would respond to anything in life that I told him I wanted to do.
59:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: He believes in me.
59:15
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
59:16
Khalila McCoy: That's good.
59:18
Khalila McCoy: You have you deserve that, first of all.
59:20
Khalila McCoy: And then you've earned that as well.
59:22
Khalila McCoy: Like you are so amazing.
59:24
Khalila McCoy: Like I love, like you said, you started off in a really low place and you did not give up.
59:30
Khalila McCoy: You're a fighter.
59:31
Khalila McCoy: You kept going for it.
59:32
Khalila McCoy: And I know no matter what happens to you, you're gonna continue to fight.
59:36
Khalila McCoy: So, and I love, like you said, the example for your children that you're and then you know, all of us watching you.
59:42
Khalila McCoy: I'm sure there's people you don't even know, right?
59:44
Khalila McCoy: Who are seeing you and watching you are inspired, just like you said, you're inspired that by the lady to become the entrepreneur.
59:51
Khalila McCoy: You're inspiring others now.
59:53
Khalila McCoy: So thank you.
59:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I know that's true, literally, just from being in law school.
59:56
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I have people reach out to me through Facebook Messenger and ask me questions and ask me for help, or maybe like send me like copies of the materials that they're getting in court.
1:00:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm like, I'm not a lawyer yet, guys.
1:00:08
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm not allowed to give you a question yet.
1:00:12
Khalila McCoy: What type of what type of law are you studying right now?
1:00:15
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Or is like, do you have like a focus or so in law school it's rare for you to go into a specific type of focus.
1:00:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's super rare because when you go and take the bar, they touch on just about everything.
1:00:28
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um it's very generalist when you were in law.
1:00:31
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But I am being very strategic about the semesters that I take.
1:00:35
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So the first um two semesters, so one L a year, you don't get any choice.
1:00:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You have to take the the things that are given to you.
1:00:44
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um I'm in 2L right now.
1:00:47
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And um the semester that I'm taking right now is uh is mostly f focused on family law.
1:00:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm taking multiple classes about family law.
1:00:55
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Next semester, I want to take ones that are based on international law, so human rights in general.
1:01:01
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Then the semester after that, I want to take ones that are focused around criminal law, and then the semester after that, I want to focus on ones that are around um finances like taxes and insurance.
1:01:13
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Not because they're interesting, but because they're needed.
1:01:16
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
1:01:17
Khalila McCoy: And then call me and share all that information because I'm you know what?
1:01:22
Amanda Goodman-Petri: No, I'm I'm posting things on TikTok about law.
1:01:25
Khalila McCoy: So follow you on TikTok.
1:01:29
Khalila McCoy: That's so cool too.
1:01:31
Khalila McCoy: I love that as you're learning things and sharing, you're just like, you know, sharing it with others so we can know as well.
1:01:37
Khalila McCoy: Cause oh my god, yes.
1:01:39
Amanda Goodman-Petri: No, I want to actually follow, I want to actually like record videos and make posts as I'm going through the congressman um office um run because I want people to be able to see behind the scenes of everything, not and not be a secret.
1:01:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yeah.
1:01:53
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So like I actually got in the 99th percentile of the LSAT, which is the test you take in order to get into office.
1:02:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Yes.
1:02:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Right.
1:02:00
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So that that was insane.
1:02:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But what I did was I recorded TikToks that showed every strategy that I used and how to get good grades.
1:02:09
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And there's literally people commenting, like, oh my God, this is the first time I've gotten like 100% on these types of questions.
1:02:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm like, yes, because a lot of times it's minorities.
1:02:17
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Minorities are the ones that these tests are not written around.
1:02:21
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And so they'll watch my videos and they'll actually start scoring well.
1:02:24
Amanda Goodman-Petri: And I'm like, yes.
1:02:27
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
1:02:27
Khalila McCoy: See, you're already helping people.
1:02:30
Khalila McCoy: And I try.
1:02:31
Khalila McCoy: Oh my gosh, I love that.
1:02:32
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you.
1:02:33
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I try, I try.
1:02:35
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
1:02:36
Khalila McCoy: Well, you shared a lot with us today.
1:02:38
Khalila McCoy: And again, I really appreciate it.
1:02:39
Khalila McCoy: I appreciate your time and your story.
1:02:41
Khalila McCoy: And I'm so excited for all the things, and we will definitely be watching for the great things.
1:02:46
Khalila McCoy: Oh, and you talked about, we talked about this a little bit before we hit record, but you mentioned too that you're not good at dancing.
1:02:52
Khalila McCoy: But law school has a prom and you said you're going next year.
1:02:56
Khalila McCoy: So I would I would love a picture or like a video of you getting out there dancing.
1:03:02
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'm a little child.
1:03:03
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I'll embarrass myself.
1:03:05
Khalila McCoy: I was like, so you know when you run for Congress, they're gonna be looking for things.
1:03:08
Khalila McCoy: So you might as well just like get it ready for them.
1:03:09
Khalila McCoy: Like, okay, time.
1:03:10
Khalila McCoy: Here's me dancing.
1:03:11
Khalila McCoy: Let's get this out of the way.
1:03:14
Amanda Goodman-Petri: That's so true.
1:03:19
Khalila McCoy: Um, but before you wrap up, I always ask the guests, right, to share what is the biggest takeaway.
1:03:26
Khalila McCoy: And I know a lot of what you've talked about, people are gonna relate to, people are gonna connect to.
1:03:30
Khalila McCoy: And some people, you know, their life might have been nothing like that, but there's always something to take away and reflect on.
1:03:37
Khalila McCoy: So what would you encourage us to reflect on to help us rise?
1:03:41
Amanda Goodman-Petri: You know what?
1:03:42
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Um I would first say that you can accomplish anything and just keep fighting, but then you you're right, not everyone is having to fight.
1:03:51
Amanda Goodman-Petri: But guess what?
1:03:52
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Everyone is is wanting to grow.
1:03:54
Amanda Goodman-Petri: So no matter what it is that you you want to grow upon, just keep just keep trying and just keep growing because I really believe that we can all keep growing.
1:04:06
Amanda Goodman-Petri: It's possible and it's beautiful, and it is so so worth it.
1:04:11
Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
1:04:11
Khalila McCoy: Well, thank you, Amanda.
1:04:13
Khalila McCoy: I really appreciate you, and I cannot wait, like I said, to see what life has in store for you.
1:04:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Thank you so much.
1:04:20
Amanda Goodman-Petri: I appreciate being here, and thank you all for listening.
1:04:23
Amanda Goodman-Petri: Wishing you the best.
1:04:27
Khalila McCoy: I had such a good time talking to Amanda.
1:04:31
Khalila McCoy: Her energy, her humor, and her sheer zeal for life are contagious.
1:04:36
Khalila McCoy: And I hope you walk away from this episode feeling a little lighter, maybe even a little more on top of the world.
1:04:43
Khalila McCoy: I hope you're reminded of all the incredible things you are capable of, and that you don't let the circumstances of life convince you otherwise.
1:04:52
Khalila McCoy: I also hope you remember this.
1:04:55
Khalila McCoy: There are people out there who are excited to share life in community.
1:05:00
Khalila McCoy: People who are healing, growing, rising, and doing their best to make the world a little better however they can.
1:05:09
Khalila McCoy: Amanda is one of those people.
1:05:12
Khalila McCoy: And if you're listening to the show, I have a feeling that you are too.
1:05:16
Khalila McCoy: So thank you.
1:05:18
Khalila McCoy: Thank you again for being here.
1:05:20
Khalila McCoy: Thank you for choosing growth.
1:05:21
Khalila McCoy: Thank you for rising along with me.
1:05:24
Khalila McCoy: And as you move through the rest of your day, I hope you take a moment to listen a little louder to yourself, to the people you love, and to the things that connect us in ways we sometimes forget to notice.
1:05:38
Khalila McCoy: I'll meet you back here next time.
1:05:41
Khalila McCoy: See ya bye.